Philosophy
of Right
G.W.F. Hegel
Translated by S.W Dyde
Batoche Books
Kitchener
2001
Batoche Books Limited
52 Eby Street South
Kitchener, Ontario
N2G 3L1
Canada
email: batoche@gto.net
Contents
Translator’s Preface. .......................................................................... 7
Author’s Preface. ............................................................................. 10
Introduction. ..................................................................................... 21
First Part: Abstract Right. ............................................................... 51
First Section. Property. ................................................................ 55
A. The Act of Possession. ........................................................ 63
B. Use of the Object. ................................................................ 67
C. Relinquishment of Property. ................................................ 71
Second Section: Contract. ............................................................ 77
Third Section: Wrong. .................................................................. 83
A. Unpremeditated Wrong. ...................................................... 85
B. Fraud. .................................................................................. 86
C. Violence and Crime. ............................................................ 86
Transition from Right to Morality. ............................................. 95
Second Part: Morality. ..................................................................... 96
First Section: Purpose and Responsibility. ................................. 101
Second Section: Intention and Well-being. ................................. 104
Third Section: The Good and Conscience. .................................. 110
Transition from Morality to Ethical System. ........................... 130
Third Part: The Ethical System. ..................................................... 132
First Section: The Family. .......................................................... 138
A. Marriage. .......................................................................... 140
B. The Family Means. ........................................................... 146
C. Education of the Children and Dissolution of the Family. . 147
Transition of the Family into the Civic Community. ................ 153
Second Section: The Civic Community. ..................................... 154
4/G. W. F. Hegel
A. The System of Wants. ....................................................... 159
B. Administration of Justice. .................................................. 169
C. Police and Corporation. ..................................................... 183
Third Section: The State. ........................................................... 194
A. Internal Polity. ................................................................... 198
B. International Law. ............................................................. 262
C. World-History. ................................................................... 266
With the Name of
Professor Watson,
Who Gave Me
My First Lessons, Not in Hegel Only, but in
Philosophy, it Gives Me Pleasure to
Connect this Translation.
Translator’s Preface.
In his preface, Hegel’s editor, Professor Eduard Gans, makes some in-
teresting remarks upon the “Philosophy of Right,” and informs us as to
the way in which the matter of the book had been put together. He dates
his preface May 29th, 1833, thirteen years, lacking one month, later
than Hegel’s date for the completion of his own preface, and eighteen
months after the philosopher’s death. Hegel had, it would appear, lived
to see the outbreak of unusual opposition to his political conceptions,
and so Dr. Gans begins: “The wide-spread misunderstanding, which
prevents the recognition of the real value of the present work, and stands
in the way of its general acceptance, urges me, now that an enlarged
edition of it has been prepared, to touch upon some things, which I
would rather have left simply to increasing philosophic insight.” He
goes on to give three reasons for placing great value upon this work of
Hegel’s.
1. He thinks that the highest praise is due to the author for the way
in which he does justice to every side of the subject, even investigating
questions which have only a slight bearing upon the matter in hand, and
thus erecting a marvellously complete structure. This fact is more strik-
ing, thinks Dr. Gans, than the foundation of the work, which had been
already in a measure laid by Kant and Rousseau.
2. A second achievement of the “Philosophy of Right” is the aboli-
tion of the distinction, so prominent in the seventeenth, and eighteenth
centuries, between law and politics. Even in our own time, remarks the
editor, many think of law as the skeleton, as it were, of the different
forms of the state, as an abstract thing devoid of life and movement.
Politics, again, they conceive to be more mobile and a function of a
living thing. Law is thus said to stand to politics as anatomy to physiol-
8/G. W. F. Hegel
ogy. This divergence, which was unknown to Plato and Aristotle, had
its origin in the separatist character of the Middle Ages, and was brought
to completion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Hegel, gath-
ering up the experience of centuries, returns to the form of the ancient
state, and counts law and politics as organic phases of one single whole.
3. The “Philosophy of Right” suggests a two-fold place for the prin-
ciple of natural right. In its scientific treatment this principle precedes
the philosophy of right, and it also comes at the close. That part of the
“Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences,” which precedes the dis-
cussion there given of right, morality, and the ethical system, is desig-
nated the subjective mind or spirit, and from that ground natural right
proceeds. Skipping over the region occupied by the “Philosophy of
Right,” dealing with the objective spirit, natural right reappears in world-
history. Dr. Grans means that the right of the world-spirit, transcending,
as it does, the individual and the nation, is a return at a higher level to
natural right. Nations are, as he says, so many streams discharging them-
selves into the world-ocean of history.
The three points of Professor Grans may be summarized thus: (1)
Hegel is thorough and systematic; (2) He has so clear and penetrating a
conception of his main idea that he is able to unify sciences, which had
seemed to be mutually exclusive; (3.) A right of nature may be viewed
as a phase of any stage of an expanding idea, and can be understood
only by reference to the exact stage which the exposition has reached.
Hence a right of nature, like sub-iectivity or objectivity, may mean quite
different things at different points in the unfolding of the system.
The single word here added is meant to accent what is implied in the
third of these remarks. The “Philosophy of Right” is really only one
part of a system. In the third part of his “Encyclopaedia,” when he
reaches the subject of Right, Hegel says (note to §487) that he may deal
briefly with this topic, since he has already gone exhaustively into it in
his “Philosophy of Right.” Hence as this work treats of an essential
stage in the evolution of spirit, whose whole nature is unfolded scene by
scene in the “Encyclopaedia,” it is not accurate to speak of Hegel’s
ethical principles as based upon his logic. The more concrete categories
of the “Philosophy of Right” are related each to the next in the same
way as are the more abstract categories treated of in the logic. But the
relation of the ethics to the logic is not that of superstructure to founda-
tion or of application to principle, but of the more concrete to the less
concrete stage of evolution. One single life runs through the whole or-
The Philosophy of Right/9
ganism of the work. Hence, Dr. Grans is not wrong in stating that this
work is an essential part of Hegel’s philosophy, and adding that with the
entire system it must stand or fall. Eather, correcting the dramatic tone
of the remark, he says in effect that standing and falling are not the only
possibilities in the case of a great philosophy. Nor, again, can the differ-
ent works of a genuine philosopher be separated into those that are gold
and those that are alloy. His work as a whole becomes a common pos-
session, and in that way makes ready, as Dr. Grans say, for a higher
thought. The unqualified rejection of any part of a philosopher’s work
is a challenge to his claim to rank as a great thinker. But the only chal-
lenge which he could himself accept as genuine, is the one which is
prepared to call in question the basis of his entire system.
Perhaps in the “Philosophy of Right” the average philosophical
worker comes more quickly to understand something of Hegel than in
his other writings. At least Hegel in this book is more likely to collide
directly with the reader’s prepossessions, and therefore more speedily
stimulates him to form his own view. No genuine philosopher will hesi-
tate to show what form his principles assume in relation to tangible
human interests. Hegel exhibits philosophic breadth by dressing up his
ideas for the thoroughfare, w-here the every-day thinker finds it pos-
sible to hob and nob with the master. Yet the student must be again
cautioned not to fancy that, because he “feels sure” that Hegel’s concep-
tion of the family, of the monarch, or of war is defective, he has left his
author behind. Such a feeling is at best only a first step, and the student
must go on to know how these practical ideas of Hegel are necessitated
by his general conception of the process of spirit. And the sure feeling
can survive only if it is transformed into a consistent criticism of this
fundamental process. The stronghold of Hegel may not be impregnable,
but it will not fall on a mere summons to surrender.
The object of the translator is to let Hegel speak at large for himself.
What liberties have been taken with the Hegelian vocabulary are illus-
trated by the index of words to be found at the close of this volume. It
has been considered quite within the province of a translator to amelio-
rate Hegel’s rigid phraseology. Even as it is the English would read
more smoothly, had the words “the individual,” “the subject,” etc., been
more frequently used instead of “particularity” and “subjectivity,” but
the substitution casts a different shade over Hegel’s thought. Apart from
the words, the reader of German will miss also Hegel’s brackets and
italics.
10/G. W. F. Hegel
As Dr. Gans has pointed out, the present work is in form made up of
three elements, the paragraphs proper, the notes and the additions. The
paragraphs comprised the entire book as it was originally issued. Then
Hegel added what he in all his references to them calls Notes, although
they are not expressly so designated in the German text. For the sake of
simplicity this term has been used throughout the book. After these notes
by Hegel are frequently found Additions made by students of Hegel
from his oral lectures and comments. It is but bare justice to the editors
to say that these additions usually cast a welcome light upon the text.
Yet as they are mere additions, not even supervised by Hegel, it is no
matter of surprise that the student, in beginning a new paragraph must,
in order to get the direct connection, revert to the closing sentences not
of the addition or mote but of the preceding paragraph. It ought to be
some comfort to the earnest reader to have in his hand all that Hegel on
this subject thought to be worth saying. Mistakes the translator has no
doubt made, and it would be for him fortunate if workers in this depart-
ment were sufficiently interested in this translation to point them out.
S. W. Dyde. Queen’s University,
Kingston, Canada,
March 23rd, 1896.
Author’s Preface.
The immediate occasion for publishing these outlines is the need of plac-
ing in the hands of my hearers a guide to my professional lectures upon
the Philosophy of Right. Hitherto I have used as lectures that portion of
the “Encyclopaedia of the Philosophic Sciences” (Heidelberg, 1817,)
which deals with this subject. The present work covers the same ground
in a more detailed and systematic way.
But now that these outlines are to be printed and given to the gen-
eral public, there is an opportunity of explaining points which in lectur-
ing would be commented on orally. Thus the notes are enlarged in order
to include cognate or conflicting ideas, further consequences of the theory
advocated, and the like. These expanded notes will, it is hoped, throw
light upon the more abstract substance of the text, and present a more
complete view of some of the ideas current in our own time. Moreover,
there is also subjoined, as far as was compatible with the purpose of a
compendium, a number of notes, ranging over a still greater latitude. A
compendium proper, like a science, has its subject-matter accurately
laid out. With the exception, possibly, of one or two slight additions, its
The Philosophy of Right/11
chief task is to arrange the essential phases of its material. This material
is regarded as fixed and known, just as the form is assumed to be gov-
erned by well-ascertained rules. A treatise in philosophy is usually not
expected to be constructed on such a pattern, perhaps because people
suppose that a philosophical product is a Penelope’s web which must be
started anew every day.
This treatise differs from the ordinary compendium mainly in its
method of procedure. It must be under-stood at the outset that the philo-
sophic way of advancing from one matter to another, the general specu-
lative method, which is the only kind of scientific proof available in
philosophy, is essentially different from every other. Only a clear insight
into the necessity for this difference can snatch philosophy out of the
ignominious condition into which it has fallen in our day. True, the logi-
cal rules, such as those of definition, classification, and inference are
now generally recognized to be inadequate for speculative science. Per-
haps it is nearer the mark to say that the inadequacy of the rules has
been felt rather than recognized, because they have been counted as
mere fetters, and thrown aside to make room for free speech from the
heart, fancy and random intuition. But when reflection and relations of
thought were required, people unconsciously fell back upon the old-
fashioned method of inference and formal reasoning.—In my “Science
of Logic” I have developed the nature of speculative science in detail.
Hence in this treatise an explanation of method will be added only here
and there. In a work which is concrete, and presents such a diversity of
phases, we may safely neglect to display at every turn the logical pro-
cess, and may take for granted an acquaintance with the scientific pro-
cedure. Besides, it may readily be observed that the work as a whole,
and also the construction of the parts, rest upon the logical spirit. From
this standpoint, especially, is it that I would like this treatise to be under-
stood and judged. In such a work as this we are dealing with a science,
and in a science the matter must not be separated from the form.
Some, who are thought to be taking a profound view, are heard to
say that everything turns upon the subject-matter, and that the form may
be ignored. The business of any writer, and especially of the philoso-
pher, is, as they say to discover, utter, and diffuse truth and adequate
conceptions. In actual practice this business usually consists in warm-
ing up and distributing on all sides the same old cabbage. Perhaps the
result of this operation may be to fashion and arouse the feelings; though
even this small merit may be regarded as superfluous, for “they have
12/G. W. F. Hegel
Moses and the prophets: let them hear them.” Indeed, we have great
cause to be amazed at the pretentious tone of those who take this view.
They seem to suppose that up till now the dissemination of truth through-
out the world has been feeble. They think that the warmed-up cabbage
contains new truths, especially to be laid to heart at the present time.
And yet we see that what is on one side announced as true, is driven out
and swept away by the same kind of worn-out truth. Out of this hurly-
burly of opinions, that which is neither new nor old, but permanent,
cannot be rescued and preserved except by science.
Further, as to rights, ethical observances, and the state, the truth is
as old as that in which it is openly displayed and recognized, namely, the
law, morality, and religion. But as the thinking spirit is not satisfied with
possessing the truth in this simple way, it must conceive it, and thus
acquire a rational form for a content which is already rational implic-
itly. In this way the substance is justified before the bar of free thought.
Free thought cannot be satisfied with what is given to it, whether by the
external positive authority of the state or human agreement, or by the
authority of internal feelings, the heart, and the witness of the spirit,
which coincides unquestioningly with the heart. It is the nature of free
thought rather to proceed out of its own self, and hence to demand that
it should know itself as thoroughly one with truth.
The ingenuous mind adheres with simple conviction to the truth
which is publicly acknowledged. On this foundation it builds its con-
duct and way of life. In opposition to this naive view of things rises the
supposed difficulty of detecting amidst the endless differences of opin-
ion anything of universal application. This trouble may easily be sup-
posed to spring from a spirit of earnest inquiry. But in point of fact
those who pride themselves upon the existence of this obstacle are in the
plight of him who cannot see the woods for the trees. The confusion is
all of their own making. Nay, more: this confusion is an indication that
they are in fact not seeking for what is universally valid in right and the
ethical order. If they were at pains to find that out, and refused to busy
themselves with empty opinion and minute detail, they would adhere to
and act in accordance with substantive right, namely the commands of
the state and the claims of society. But a further difficulty lies in the fact
that man thinks, and seeks freedom and a basis for conduct in thought.
Divine as his right to act in this way is, it becomes a wrong, when it
takes the place of thinking. Thought then regards itself as free only
when it is conscious of being at variance with what is generally recog-
The Philosophy of Right/13
nized, and of setting itself up as something original.
The idea that freedom of thought and mind is indicated only by
deviation from, or even hostility to what is everywhere recognized, is
most persistent with regard to the state. The essential task of a philoso-
phy of the state would thus seem to be the discovery and publication of
a new and original theory. When we examine this idea and the way it is
applied, we are almost led to think that no state or constitution has ever
existed, or now exists. We are tempted to suppose that we must now
begin and keep on beginning afresh for ever. We are to fancy that the
founding of the social order has depended upon present devices and
discoveries. As to nature, philosophy, it is admitted, has to understand it
as it is. The philosophers’ stone must be concealed somewhere, we say,
in nature itself, as nature is in itself rational. Knowledge must, there-
fore, examine, apprehend and conceive the reason actually present in
nature. Not with the superficial shapes and accidents of nature, but with
its eternal harmony, that is to say, its inherent law and essence, knowl-
edge has to cope. But the ethical world or the state, which is in fact
reason potently and permanently actualized in self-consciousness, is not
permitted to enjoy the happiness of being reason at all.
1
On the contrary
the spiritual universe is looked upon as abandoned by God, and given
over as a prey to accident and chance. As in this way the divine is
eliminated from the ethical world, truth must be sought outside of it.
And since at the same time reason should and does belong to the ethical
world, truth, being divorced from reason, is reduced to a mere specula-
tion. Thus seems to arise the necessity and duty of every thinker to
pursue a career of his own. Not that he needs to seek for the philoso-
phers’ stone, since the philosophizing of our day has saved him the
trouble, and every would-be thinker is convinced that he possesses the
stone already without search. But these erratic pretensions are, as it
indeed happens, ridiculed by all who, whether they are aware of it or
not, are conditioned in their lives by the state and find their minds and
wills satisfied in it. These, who include the majority if not all, regard the
occupation of philosophers as a game, sometimes playful, sometimes
earnest, sometimes entertaining, sometimes dangerous, but always as a
mere game. Both this restless and frivolous reflection and also this treat-
ment accorded to it might safely be left to take their own course, were it
not that betwixt them philosophy is brought into discredit and contempt.
The most cruel despite is done when every one is convinced of his abil-
ity to pass judgment upon, and discard philosophy without any special
14/G. W. F. Hegel
study. No such scorn is heaped upon any other art or science.
In point of fact the pretentious utterances of recent philosophy re-
garding the state have been enough to justify any one who cared to
meddle with the question, in the conviction that he could prove himself
a philosopher by weaving a philosophy out of his own brain. Notwith-
standing this conviction, that which passes for philosophy has openly
announced that truth cannot be known. The truth with regard to ethical
ideals, the state, the government and the constitution ascends, so it de-
clares, out of each man’s heart, feeling, and enthusiasm. Such declara-
tions have been poured especially into the eager ears of the young. The
words “God giveth truth to his chosen in sleep” have been applied to
science; hence every sleeper has numbered himself amongst the chosen.
But what he deals with in sleep is only the wares of sleep. Mr. Fries,
2
one of the leaders of this shallow-minded host of philosophers, on a
public festive occasion, now become celebrated, has not hesitated to
give utterance to the following notion of the state and constitution: “When
a nation is ruled by a common spirit, then from below, out of the people,
will come life sufficient for the discharge of all public business. Living
associations, united indissolubly by the holy bond of friendship, will
devote themselves to every side of national service, and every means for
educating the people.” This is the last degree of shallowness, because in
it science is looked upon as developing, not out of thought or concep-
tion, but out of direct perception and random fancy. Now the organic
connection of the manifold branches of the social system is the architec-
tonic of the state’s rationality, and in this supreme science of state archi-
tecture the strength of the whole is made to depend upon the harmony of
all the clearly marked phases of public life, and the stability of every
pillar, arch, and buttress of the social edifice. And yet the shallow doc-
trine, of which we have spoken, permits this elaborate structure to melt
and lose itself in the brew and stew of the “heart, friendship, and inspi-
ration.” Epicurus, it is said, believed that the world generally should be
given over to each individual’s opinions and whims; and according to
the view we are criticising the ethical fabric should be treated in the
same way. By this old wives’ decoction, which consists in founding
upon the feelings what has been for many centuries the labour of reason
and understanding, we no longer need the guidance of any ruling con-
ception of thought. On this point Goethe’s Mephistopheles, and the poet
is a good authority, has a remark, which I have already used elsewhere—
The Philosophy of Right/15
“Verachte nur Verstand und Wissenschaft,
des Mensclien allerhöchste Gaben—
So hast dem Teufel dieh ergeben
und musst zu Grunde gehn.”
It is no surprise that the view just criticised should appear in the
form of piety. Where, indeed, has this whirlwind of impulse not sought
to justify itself? In godliness and the Bible it has imagined itself able to
find authority for despising order and law. And, in fact, it is piety of a
sort which has reduced the whole organized system of truth to elemen-
tary intuition and feeling. But piety of the right kind leaves this obscure
region, and comes out into the daylight, where the idea unfolds and
reveals itself. Out of its sanctuary it brings a reverence for the law and
truth which are absolute and exalted above all subjective feeling.
The particular kind of evil consciousness developed by the wishy-
washy eloquence already alluded to, may be detected in the following
way. It is most unspiritual, when it speaks most of the spirit. It is the
most dead and leathern, when it talks of the scope of life. When it is
exhibiting the greatest self-seeking and vanity it has most on its tongue
the words “people” and “nation.” But its peculiar mark, found on its
very forehead, is its hatred of law. Right and ethical principle, the actual
world of right and ethical life, are apprehended in thought, and by thought
are given definite, general, and rational form, and this reasoned right
finds expression in law. But feeling, which seeks its own pleasure, and
conscience, which finds right in private conviction, regard the law as
their most bitter foe. The right, which takes the shape of law and duty, is
by feeling looked upon as a shackle or dead cold letter. In this law it
does not recognize itself and does not find itself free. Yet the law is the
reason of the object, and refuses to feeling the privilege of warming
itself at its private hearth. Hence the law, as we shall occasionally ob-
serve, is the Shibboleth, by means of which are detected the false breth-
ren and friends of the so-called people.
Inasmuch as the purest charlatanism has won the name of philoso-
phy, and has succeeded in convincing the public that its practices are
philosophy, it has now become almost a disgrace to speak in a philo-
sophic way about the state. Nor can it be taken ill, if honest men become
impatient, when the subject is broached. Still less is it a surprise that the
government has at last turned its attention to this false philosophizing.
With us philosophy is not practised as a private art, as it was by the
16/G. W. F. Hegel
Greeks, but has a public place, and should therefore be employed only
in the service of the state. The government has, up till now, shown such
confidence in the scholars in this department as to leave the subject
matter of philosophy wholly in their hands. Here and there, perhaps, has
been shown to this science not confidence “so much as indifference, and
professorships have been retained as a matter of tradition. In France, as
far as I am aware, the professional teaching of metaphysics at least has
fallen into desuetude. In any case the confidence of the state has been ill
requited by the teachers of this subject. Or, if we prefer to see in the
state not confidence, but indifference, the decay of fundamental knowl-
edge must be looked upon as a severe penance. Indeed, shallowness is to
all appearance most endurable and most in harmony with the mainte-
nance of order and peace, when it does not touch or hint at any real
issue. Hence it would not be necessary to bring it under public control,
if the state did not require deeper teaching and insight, and expect sci-
ence to satisfy the need. Yet this shallowness, notwithstanding its seem-
ing innocence, does bear upon social life, right and duty generally, ad-
vancing principles which are the very essence of superficiality. These,
as we have learned so decidedly from Plato, are the principles of the
Sophists, according to which the basis of right is subjective aims and
opinions, subjective feeling and private conviction. The result of such
principles is quite as much the destruction of the ethical system, of the
upright conscience, of love and right, in private persons, as of public
order and the institutions of the state. The significance of these facts for
the authorities will not be obscured by the claim that the holder of these
perilous doctrines should be trusted, or by the immunity of office. The
authorities will not be deterred by the demand that they should protect
and give free play to a theory which strikes at the substantial basis of
conduct, namely, universal principles; and that they should disregard
insolence on the ground of its being the exercise of the teacher’s func-
tion. To him, to whom God gives office, He gives also understanding is
a well-worn jest, which no one in our time would like to take seriously.
In the methods of teaching philosophy, which have under the cir-
cumstances been reanimated by the government, the important element
of protection and support cannot be ignored. The study of philosophy is
in many ways in need of such assistance. Frequently in scientific, reli-
gious, and other works may be read a contempt for philosophy. Some,
who have no conspicuous education and are total strangers to philoso-
phy, treat it as a cast-off garment. They even rail against it, and regard
The Philosophy of Right/17
as foolishness and sinful presumption its efforts to conceive of God and
physical and spiritual nature. They scout its endeavour to know the
truth. Reason, and again reason, and reason in endless iteration is by
them accused, despised, condemned. Free expression, also, is given by a
large number of those, who are supposed to be cultivating scientific
research, to their annoyance at the unassailable claims of the concep-
tion. When we, I say, are confronted with such phenomena as these, we
are tempted to harbour the thought that old traditions of tolerance have
fallen out of use, and no longer assure to philosophy a place and public
recognition.
3
These presumptuous utterances, which are in vogue in our time,
are, strange to say, in a measure justified by the shallowness of the
current philosophy. Yet, on the other hand, they have sprung from the
same root as that against which they so thanklessly direct their attacks.
Since that self-named philosophizing has declared that to know the truth
is vain, it has reduced all matter of thought to the same level, resembling
in this way the despotism of the Roman Empire, which equalized noble
and slave, virtue and vice, honour and dishonour, knowledge and igno-
rance. In such a view the conceptions of truth and the laws of ethical
observance are simply opinions and subjective convictions, and the most
criminal principles, provided only that they are convictions, are put on a
level with these laws. Thus, too, any paltry special object, be it never so
flimsy, is given the same value as an interest common to all thinking
men and the bonds of the established social world.
Hence it is for science a piece of good fortune that that kind of
philosophizing, which might, like scholasticism, have continued to spin
its notions within itself, has been brought into contact with reality. In-
deed, such contact was, as we have said, inevitable. The real world is in
earnest with the principles of right and duty, and in the full light of a
consciousness of these principles it lives. With this world of reality philo-
sophic cob-web spinning has come into open rupture. Now, as to genu-
ine philosophy it is precisely its attitude to reality which has been mis-
apprehended. Philosophy is, as I have already observed, an inquisition
into the rational, and therefore the apprehension of the real and present.
Hence it cannot be the exposition of a world beyond, which is merely a
castle in the air, having no existence except in the terror of a onesided
and empty formalism of thought. In the following treatise I have re-
marked that even Plato’s “Republic,” now regarded as the byword for
an empty ideal, has grasped the essential nature of the ethical obser-
18/G. W. F. Hegel
vances of the Greeks He knew that there was breaking in upon Greek lif
a deeper principle, which could directly manifest itself only as an unsat-
isfied longing and therefore as ruin. Moved by the same longing Plato
had to seek help against it but had to conceive of the help as coming
down from above and hoped at last to have found it in an external spe-
cial form of Greek ethical observance. He exhausted himself in contriv-
ing how by means of this new society to stem the tide of ruin, but suc-
ceeded only in injuring more fatally its deeper motive, the free infinite
personality. Yet he has proved himself to be a great mind because the
very principle and central distinguishing feature of his idea is the pivot
upon which the world-wide revolution then in process turned:
What is rational is real;
And what is real is rational.
Upon this conviction stand not philosophy only but even every un-
sophisticated consciousness. From it also proceeds the view now under
contemplation that the spiritual universe is the natural. When reflection,
feeling, or whatever other form the subjective consciousness may as-
sume, regards the present as vanity, and thinks itself to be beyond it and
wiser, it finds itself in emptiness, and, as it has actuality only in the
present, it is vanity throughout. Against the doctrine that the idea is a
mere idea, figment or opinion, philosophy preserves the more profound
view that nothing is real except the idea. Hence arises the effort to rec-
ognize in the temporal and transient the substance, which is immanent,
and the eternal, which is present. The rational is synonymous with the
idea, because in realizing itself it passes into external existence. It thus
appears in an endless wealth of forms, figures and phe-nomena. It wraps
its kernel round with a robe of many colours, in which consciousness
finds itself at home. Through this varied husk the conception first of all
penetrates, in order to touch the pulse, and then feel it throbbing in its
external manifestations. To bring to order the endlessly varied relations,
which constitute the outer appearance of the rational essence is not the
task of philosophy. Such material is not suitable for it, and it can well
abstain from giving good advice about these things. Plato could refrain
from recommending to the nurses not to stand still with children, but
always to dandle them in their arms. So could Fichte forbear to con-
strue, as they say, the supervision of passports to such a point as to
demand of all suspects that not only a description of them but also their
The Philosophy of Right/19
photograph, should be inserted in the pass. Philosophy now exhibits no
trace of such details. These superfine concerns it may neglect all the
more safely, since it shows itself of the most liberal spirit in its attitude
towards the endless mass of objects and circumstances. By such a course
science will escape the hate which is visited upon a multitude of circum-
stances and institutions by the vanity of a better knowledge. In this hate
bitterness of mind finds the greatest pleasure, as it can in no other way
attain to a feeling of self-esteem.
This treatise, in so far as it contains a political science, is nothing
more than an attempt to conceive of and present the state as in itself
rational. As a philosophic writing it must be on its guard against con-
structing a state as it ought to be. Philosophy cannot teach the state
what it should be, but only how it, the ethical universe, is to be known.
IdoÝ RÒodoj, „doÝ kai tõ p»dhma.
Hic Rhodus, hic saltus.
To apprehend what is is the task of philosophy, because what is is
reason. As for the individual, every one is a son of his time; so philoso-
phy also is its time apprehended in thoughts. It is just as foolish to fancy
that any philosophy can transcend its present world, as that an indi-
vidual could leap out of his time or jump over Rhodes. If a theory trans-
gresses its time, and builds up a world as it ought to be, it has an exist-
ence merely in the unstable element of opinion, which gives room to
every wandering fancy.
With little change the above saying would read:
Here is the rose, here dance.
The barrier which stands between reason, as self-conscious spirit,
and reason as present reality, and does not permit spirit to find satisfac-
tion in reality, is some abstraction, which is not free to be conceived. To
recognize reason as the rose in the cross of the present, and to find
delight in it, is a rational insight which implies reconciliation with real-
ity. This reconciliation philosophy grants to those who have felt the
inward demand to conceive clearly, to preserve subjective freedom while
present in substantive reality, and yet though possessing this freedom to
stand not upon the particular and contingent, but upon what is self-
originated and self-completed.
20/G. W. F. Hegel
This also is the more concrete meaning of what was a moment ago
more abstractly called the unity of form and content. Form in its most
concrete significance is reason, as an intellectual apprehension which con-
ceives its object. Content, again, is reason as the substantive essence of
social order and nature. The conscious identity of form and content is the
philosophical idea.
It is a self-assertion, which does honour to man, to recognize nothing in
sentiment which is not justified by thought. This self-will is a feature of
modern times, being indeed the peculiar principle of Protestantism. What
was initiated by Luther as faith in feeling and the witness of the spirit, the
more mature mind strives to apprehend in conception. In that way it seeks
to free itself in the present, and so find there itself. It is a celebrated saying
that a half philosophy leads away from God, while a true philosophy leads
to God. (It is the same halfness, I say in passing, which regards knowledge
as an approximation to truth.) This saying is applicable to the science of the
state. Reason cannot content itself with a mere approximation, something
which is neither cold not hot, and must be spued out of the mouth. As little
can it be contented with the cold scepticism that in this world of time things
go badly, or at best only moderately well, and that we must keep the peace
with reality, merely because there is nothing better to be had. Knowledge
creates a much more vital peace.
Only one word more concerning the desire to teach the world what it
ought to be. For such a purpose philosophy at least always comes too late.
Philosophy, as the thought of the world, does not appear until reality has
completed its formative process, and made itself ready. History thus cor-
roborates the teaching of the conception that only in the maturity of reality
does the ideal appear as counterpart to the real, apprehends the real world
in its substance, and shapes it into an intellectual kingdom. When philoso-
phy paints its grey in grey, one form of life has become old, and by means
of grey it cannot be rejuvenated, but only known. The owl of Minerva takes
its flight only when the shades of night are gathering.
But it is time to close this preface. As a preface it is its place to speak
only externally and subjectively of the standpoint of the work which it
introduces. A philosophical account of the essential content needs a scien-
tific and objective treatment. So, too, criticisms, other than those which
proceed from such a treatment, must be viewed by the author as unreflec-
tive convictions. Such subjective criticisms must be for him a matter of
indifference.
Berlin, June 25th, 1820.
Introduction.
1. The philosophic science of right has as its object the idea of right, i.e.,
the conception of right and the realization of the conception.
Note.—Philosophy has to do with ideas or realized thoughts, and
hence not with what we have been accustomed to call mere conceptions.
It has indeed to exhibit the onesidedness and untruth of these mere con-
ceptions, and to show that, while that which commonly bears the name
“conception,” is only an abstract product of the understanding, the true
conception alone has reality and gives this reality to itself. Everything,
other than the reality which is established “by the conception, is tran-
sient surface existence, external accident, opinion, appearance void of
essence, untruth, delusion, and so forth. Through the actual shape, which
it takes upon itself in actuality, is the conception itself understood. This
shape is the other essential element of the idea, and is to be distinguished
trom the form, which exists only as conception.
Addition.—The conception and its existence are two sides, distinct
yet united, like soul and body. The body is the same life as the soul, and
yet the two can be named independently. A soul without a body would
not be a living thing, and vice versa. Thus the visible existence of the
conception is its body, just as the body obeys the soul which produced
it. Seeds contain the tree and its whole power, though they are not the
tree itself; the tree corresponds accurately to the simple structure of the
seed. If the body does not correspond to the soul, it is defective. The
unity of visible existence and conception, of body and soul, is the idea.
It is not a mere harmony of the two, but their complete interpenetration.
There lives nothing, which is not in some way idea. The idea of right is
freedom, which, if it is to be apprehended truly, must be known both in
its conception and in the embodiment of the conception.
The Philosophy of Right.
22/G. W. F. Hegel
2. The science of right is a part of philosophy. Hence it must de-
velop the idea, which is the reason of an object, out of the conception. It
is the same thing to say that it must regard the peculiar internal develop-
ment of the thing itself. Since it is a part it has a definite beginning,
which is the result and truth of what goes before, and this, that goes
before, constitutes its so- called proof. Hence the origin of the concep-
tion of right falls outside of the science of right. The deduction of the
conception is presupposed in this treatise, and is to be considered as
already given.
Addition.—Philosophy forms a circle. It has, since it must some-
how make a beginning, a primary, directly given matter, which is not
proved and is not a result. But this starting-point is simply relative,
since from another point of view it appears as a result. Philosophy is a
consequence, which does not hang in the air or form a directly new
beginning, but is self- enclosed.
According to the formal unphilosophic method of the sciences, defi-
nition is the first desideratum, as regards, at least, the external scientific
form. The positive science of right, however, is little concerned with
definition, since its special aim is to give what it is that is right, and also
the particular phases of the laws. For this reason it has been said as a
warning, Omnis definitio in jure civili periculosa; and in fact the more
disconnected and contradictory the phases of a right are, the less pos-
sible is a definition of it. A definition should contain only universal
features; but these forthwith bring to light contradictions, which in the
case of law are injustice, in all their nakedness. Thus in Roman law, for
instance, no definition of man was possible, because it excluded the
slave. The conception of man was destroyed by the fact of slavery. In
the same way to have defined property and owner would have appeared
to be perilous to many relations.—But definitions may perhaps be de-
rived from etymology, for the reason, principally, that in this way spe-
cial cases are avoided, and a basis is found in the feeling and imagina-
tive thought of men. The correctness of a definition would thus consist
in its agreement with existing ideas. By such a method everything essen-
tially scientific is cast aside. As regards the content there is cast aside
the necessity of the self-contained and self-developed object, and as re-
gards the form there is discarded the nature of the conception. In philo-
sophic knowledge the necessity of a conception is the main thing, and
the process, by which it, as a result, has come into being, is the proof
and deduction. After the content is seen to be necessary independently,
The Philosophy of Right/23
the second point is to look about for that which corresponds to it in
existing ideas and modes of speech. But the way in which a conception
exists in its truth, and the way it presents itself in random ideas not only
are but must be different both in form and structure. If a notion is not in
its content false, the conception can be shown to be contained in it and
to be already there in its essential traits. A notion may thus be raised to
the form of a conception. But so little is any notion the measure and
criterion of an independently necessary and true conception, that it must
accept truth from the conception, be justified by it, and know itself
through it.—If the method of knowing, which proceeds by formal defi-
nition, inference and proof, has more or less disappeared, a worse one
has come to take its place. This new method maintains that ideas, as,
e.g., the idea of right in all its aspects, are to be directly apprehended as
mere facts of consciousness, and that natural feeling, or that heightened
form of it which is known as the inspiration of one’s own breast, is the
source of right. This method may be the most convenient of all, but it is
also the most unphilosophic. Other fea-tures of this view, referring not
merely to knowledge but directly to action, need not detain us here.
While the first or formal method went so far as to require in definition
the form of the conception, and in proof the form of a necessity of knowl-
edge, the method of the intuitive consciousness and feeling takes for its
principle the arbitrary contingent consciousness of the subject.—In this
treatise we take for granted the scientific procedure of philosophy, which
has been set forth in the philosophic logic.
3. Right is positive in general (a) in its form, since it has validity in
a state; and this established authority is the principle for the knowledge
of right. Hence we have the positive science of right. (b) On the side of
content this right receives a positive element (
a) through the particular
character of a nation, the stage of its historical development, and the
interconnection of all the relations which are necessitated by nature: (
b)
through the necessity that a system of legalized right must contain the
application of the universal conception to objects and cases whose quali-
ties are given externally. Such an application is not the speculative thought
or the development of the conception, but a subsumption made by the
understanding: (
g) through the ultimate nature of a decision which has
become a reality.
Note.—Philosophy at least cannot recognize the authority of feel-
ing, inclination and caprice, when they are set in opposition to positive
right and the laws.—It is an accident, external to the nature of positive
24/G. W. F. Hegel
right, when force or tyranny becomes an element of it. It will be shown
later (§§211–214), at what point right must become positive. The gen-
eral phases which are there deduced, are here only mentioned, in order
to indicate the limit of philosophic right, and also to forestall the idea or
indeed the demand that by a systematic development of right should be
produced a law-book, such as would be needed by an actual state. — To
convert the differences between right of nature and positive right, or
those between philosophic right and positive right, into open antago-
nism would be a complete misunderstanding. Natural right or philo-
sophic right stands to positive right as institutions to pandects.—With
regard to the historical element in positive right, referred to in the para-
graph, it may be said that the true historical view and genuine philo-
sophic standpoint have been presented by Montesquieu. He regards leg-
islation and its specific traits not in an isolated and abstract way, but
rather as a dependent element of one totality, connecting it with all the
other elements which form the character of a nation and an epoch. In
this interrelation the various elements receive their meaning and justifi-
cation.—The purely historical treatment of the phases of right, as they
develop in time, and a comparison of their results with existing relations
of right have their own value; but they are out of place in a philosophic
treatise, except in so far as the development out of historic grounds
coincides with the development out of the conception, and the historical
exposition and justification can be made to cover a justification which is
valid in itself and independently. This distinction is as manifest as it is
weighty. A phase of right may be shown to rest upon and follow from
the circumstances and existing institutions of right, and yet may be ab-
solutely unreasonable and void of right. This is the cape in Roman law
with many aspects of private right, which were the logical results of its
interpretation of paternal power and of marriage. Further, if the aspects
of right are really right and reasonable, it is one thing to point out what
with regard to them can truly take place through the conception, and
quite another thing, to portray the manner of their appearance in history,
along with the circumstances, cases, wants and events, which they have
called forth Such a demonstration and deduction from nearer or more
remote historic causes, which is the occupation of pragmatic history, is
frequently called exposition, or preferably conception, under the opin-
ion that in such an indication of the historic elements is found all that is
essential to a conception of law and institutions of right. In point of fact
that which is truly essential, the conception of the matter has not been so
The Philosophy of Right/25
much as mentioned.—So also we are accustomed to hear of Roman or
German conceptions of right, and of conceptions of right as they are
laid down in this or that statute-book, when indeed nothing about con-
ceptions can be found in them, but only general phases of right, propo-
sitions derived from the understanding, general maxims, and laws.—By
neglect of the distinction, just alluded to, the true standpoint is obscured
and the question of a valid justification is shifted into a justification
based upon circumstances; results are founded on presuppositions, which
in themselves are of little value; and in general the relative is put in
place of the absolute, and external appearance in place of the nature of
the thing. When the historical vindication substitutes the external origin
for the origin from the conception, it unconsciously does the opposite of
what it intends. Suppose that an institution, originating under definite
circumstances, is shown to be necessary and to answer its purpose, and
that it accomplishes all that is required of it by the historical standpoint.
When such a proof is made to stand for a justification of the thing itself,
it follows that, when the circumstances are removed, the institution has
lost its meaning and its right. When, e.g., it is sought to support and
defend cloisters on the grounds that they have served to clear and people
the wilderness and by teaching and transcribing to preserve scholarship,
it follows that just in so far as the circumstances are changed, cloisters
have become aimless and superfluous.—In so far as the historic signifi-
cance, or the historical exposition and interpretation of the origin of
anything is in different spheres at home with the philosophic view of the
origin and conception of the thing, one might tolerate the other. But, in
illustration of the fact that they neither here nor in science, preserve this
peaceful attitude, I quote from Mr. Hugo’s “Lehrbuch der Geschichte
des römischen Rechts.”
4
In this work Mr Hugo says (5th edition §53)
that “Cicero praises the twelve tables with a side glance at philosophy,”
“but the philosopher Phavorinus treats them exactly as many a great
philosopher since has treated positive right.” Mr. Hugo makes the ulti-
mate reply to such a method as that of Phavorinus, when he says of him
that he “understood the twelve tables just as little as the philosophers
understood positive right.”—The correction of the philosopher
Phavorinus by the jurist Sextus Caecilius (Gellius. “Noct. Attic.” xx. 1)
expresses the lasting and true principle of the justification of that which
is in its content merely positive “Non ignoras,” as Caecilius felicitously
remarks to Phavorinus, “legum opportunitates et medelas pro tem-porum
moribus, et pro rerum publicarum generibus, ac pro utilitatum praesen-
26/G. W. F. Hegel
tium rationibus, proque vitiorum, quibus medendum est, fervoribus
mutari ac flecti, neque uno statu consistere, quin, ut facies coeli et maris,
ita rerum atque fortunae tempestatibus varientur. Quid salubrius visum
est rogatione illa Stolonis, etc., quid utilius plebiscite Voconio, etc., quid
tam necessarium existimatum est, quam lex Licinia, etc.? Omnia tamen
haec obliterata et operta sunt civitatis opulentia,” etc.—These laws are
positive so far as they have meaning and appropriateness under the cir-
cumstances, and thus have only an historic value. For this reason they
are in their nature transient, Whether the legislator or government was
wise or not in what it did for its own immediate time and circumstances
is a matter quite by itself and is for history to say. History will the more
profoundly recognize the action of the legislator in proportion as its
estimate receives support from the philosophic standpoint.—From the
vindications of the twelve tables against the judgment of Phavorinus I
shall give further examples, because in them Caecilius furnishes an il-
lustration of the fraud which is indissolubly bound up with the methods
of the understanding and its reasonings. He adduces a good reason for a
bad thing, and supposes that he has in that way justified the thing. Take
the horrible law which permitted a creditor, after the lapse of a fixed
term of respite, to kill a debtor or sell him into slavery. Nay, further, if
there were several creditors, they were permitted to cut pieces off the
debtor, and thus divide him amongst them, with the proviso that if any
one of them should cut off too much or too little, no action should be
taken against him. It was this clause, it may be noticed, which stood
Shakespeare’s Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice” in such good stead,
and was by him most thankfully accepted. Well, for this law Caecilius
adduces the good argument that by it trust and credit were more firmly
secured, and also that, by reason of the very horror of the law, it never
had to be enforced. Not only does he in his want of thought fail to
observe that by the severity of the law that very intention of securing
trust and credit was defeated, but he forthwith himself gives an illustra-
tion of the way in which the disproportionate punishment caused the
law to be inoperative, namely through the habit of giving false wit-
ness.—But the remark of Mr. Hugo that Phavorinus had not understood
the law is not to be passed over. Now any school-boy can understand the
law just quoted, and better than anyone else would Shylock have under-
stood what was to him of such advantage. Hence, by “understand” Mr.
Hugo must mean that form of understanding which consists in bringing
to the support of a law a good reason.—Another failure to understand,
The Philosophy of Right/27
asserted by Csecilius of Phavorinus, a philosopher at any rate may with-
out blushing acknowledge: jumentum, which without any arcera was
the only legal way to bring a sick man to court as a witness, was held to
mean not only a horse but also a carriage or wagon. Further on in this
law Caecilius found more evidence of the excellence and accuracy of
the old statutes, which for the purpose of non-suiting a sick man at court
distinguished not only between a horse and a wagon, but also, as Caecilius
explains, between a wagon covered and cushioned and one not so com-
fortably equipped. Thus one would have the choice between utter sever-
ity on one side, and on the other senseless details. But to exhibit fully the
absurdity of these laws and the pedantic defence offered in their behalf
would give rise to an invincible repugnance to all scholarship of that
kind.
But in his manual Mr. Hugo speaks also of rationality in connection
with Roman law, and I have been struck with the following remarks. He
first of all treats of the epoch extending from the origin of the Republic
to the twelve tables (§§38, 39), noticing that in Rome people had many
wants, and were compelled in their labour to use draught animals and
beasts of burden, as we ourselves do, and that the ground was an alter-
nation of hill and valley, and that the city was set upon a hill, etc. These
statements might, perhaps, have answered to the sense of Montesquieu’s
thought, though in them it would be well-nigh impossible to find his
genius. But after these preliminary paragraphs, he goes on to say in
§40, that the condition of the law was still very far from satisfying the
highest demands of reason. This remark is wholly in place, as the Ro-
man family-right, slavery, etc., give no satisfaction to the smallest de-
mands of reason. Yet when discussing the succeeding epochs, Mr. Hugo
forgets to tell us in what particulars, if any, the Roman law has satisfac-
torily met the highest demands of reason. Still of the classic jurists, who
flourished in the era of the greatest expansion of Roman law as a sci-
ence, it is said (§289) that “it has been long since been observed that the
Roman jurists were educated in philosophy,” but “few know” (more
will know now through the numerous editions of Mr. Hugo’s manual)
“that there is no class of writers, who, as regards deduction from prin-
ciples, deserved to be placed beside the mathematicians, and also, as
regards the quite remarkable way in which they develop their concep-
tions, beside the modern founder of meta-physic; as voucher for this
assertion is the notable fact that nowhere do so many trichotomies occur
as in the classic jurists and in Kant.” This form of logical reasoning,
28/G. W. F. Hegel
extolled by Leibnitz, is certainly an essential feature of the science of
right, as it is of mathematics and every other intelligible science; but the
logical procedure of the mere understanding, spoken of by Mr. Hugo,
has nothing to do with the satisfaction of the claims of reason and with
philosophic science. Moreover, the very lack of logical procedure, which
is characteristic of the Roman jurists and praetors, is to be esteemed as
one of their chief virtues, since by means of it they obviated the conse-
quences of unrighteous and horrible institutions. Through their want of
logic they were compelled callide to put sense into mere verbal distinc-
tions, as they did when they identified Bonorum possessio with inherit-
ance, and also into silly evasions, for silliness is a defect of logic, in
order to save the letter of the tables, as was done in the fictio or
ØpÒkrisij
that a filia patroni was a filius (Heinecc. “Antiq-Rom.,” lib. i. tit. ii.
§24). But it is absurd to place the classic jurists, with their use of tri-
chotomy, along with Kant, and in that way to discern in them the prom-
ise of the development of conceptions.
4. The territory of right is in general the spiritual, and its more
definite place and origin is the will, which is free. Thus freedom consti-
tutes the substance and essential character of the will, and the system of
right is the kingdom of actualized freedom. It is the world of spirit which
is produced out of itself, and is a second nature.
Addition. —Freedom of will is best explained by reference to physical
nature. Freedom is a fundamental phase of will, as weight is of bodies.
When it is said that matter is heavy, it might be meant that the predicate
is an accident; but such is not the case, for in matter there is nothing
which has not weight; in fact, matter is weight. That which is heavy
constitutes the body, and is the body. Just so is it with freedom and the
will; that which is free is the will. Will without freedom is an empty
word, and freedom becomes actual only as will, as subject. A remark
may also be made as to the connection of willing and thinking. Spirit, in
general, is thought, and by thought man is distinguished from the ani-
mal. But we must not imagine that man is on one side thinking and on
another side willing, as though he had will in one pocket and thought in
another. Such an idea is vain. The distinction between thought and will
is only that between a theoretical and a practical relation. They are not
two separate faculties. The will is a special way of thinking; it is thought
translating itself into reality; it is the impulse of thought to give itself
reality. The distinction between thought and will may be expressed in
this way. When I think an object, I make of it a thought, and take from
The Philosophy of Right/29
it the sensible. Thus I make of it something which is essentially and
directly mine. Only in thought am I self-contained. Conception is the
penetration of the object, which is then no longer opposed to me. From
it I have taken its own peculiar nature, which it had as an independent
object in opposition to me. As Adam said to Eve, “thou art flesh of my
flesh and bone of my bone,” so says the spirit, “This object is spirit of
my spirit, and all alienation has disappeared.” Any idea is a universaliz-
ing, and this process belongs to thinking. To make something universal
is to think. The “I” is thought and the universal. When I say “I,” I let fall
all particularity of character, natural endowment, knowledge, age. The
I is empty, a point and simple, but in its simplicity active. The gaily
coloured world is before me; I stand opposed to it, and in this relation I
cancel and transcend the opposition, and make the content my own. The
I is at home in the world, when it knows it, and still more when it has
conceived it.
So much for the theoretical relation. The practical, on the other
hand, begins with thinking, with the I itself. It thus appears first of all as
placed in opposition, because it exhibits, as it were, a separation. As I
am practical, I am active; I act and determine myself; and to determine
myself means to set up a distinction. But these distinctions are again
mine, my own determinations come to me; and the ends are mine, to
which I am impelled. Even when I let these distinctions and determina-
tions go, setting them in the so-called external world, they remain mine.
They are that which I have done and made, and bear the trace of my
spirit. That is the distinction to be drawn between the theoretical and the
practical relations.
And now the connection of the two must be also stated. The theo-
retical is essentially contained in the practical. Against the idea that the
two are separate runs the fact that man has no will without intelligence.
The will holds within itself the theoretical, the will determines itself, and
this determination is in the first instance internal. That which I will I
place before my mind, and it is an object for me. The animal acts ac-
cording to instinct, is impelled by something internal, and so is also
practical. But it has no will, because it cannot place before its mind
what it desires. Similarly man cannot use his theoretic faculty or think
without will, for in thinking we are active. The content of what is thought
receives, indeed, the form of something existing, but this existence is
occasioned by our activity and by it established. These distinctions of
theoretical and practical are inseparable; they are one and the same; and
30/G. W. F. Hegel
in every activity, whether of thought or will, both these elements are
found.
It is worth while to recall the older way of proceeding with regard to
the freedom of the will. First of all, the idea of the will was assumed,
and then an effort was made to deduce from it and establish a definition
of the will. Next, the method of the older empirical psychology was
adopted, and different perceptions and general phenomena of the ordi-
nary consciousness were collected, such as remorse, guilt, and the like,
on the ground that these could be explained only as proceeding out of a
will that is free. Then from these phenomena was deduced the so-called
proof that the will is free. But it is more convenient to take a short cut
and hold that freedom is given as a fact of consciousness, and must be
believed in.
The nature of the will and of freedom, and the proof that the will is
free, can be shown, as has already been observed (§2), only in connec-
tion with the whole. The ground principles of the premises—that spirit
is in the first instance intelligence, and that the phases, through which it
passes in its development, namely from feeling, through imaginative
thinking to thought, are the way by which it produces itself as will,
which, in turn, as the practical spirit in general, is the most direct truth
of intelligence—I have presented in my “Encyclopaedia of the Philo-
sophical Sciences” (Heidelberg, 1817), and hope some day to be able to
give of them a more complete exposition. There is, to my mind, so much
the more need for me to give my contribution to, as I hope, the more
thorough knowledge of the nature of spirit, since, as I have there said, it
would be difficult to find a philosophic science in a more neglected and
evil plight than is that theory of spirit, which is commonly called psy-
chology.—Some elements of the conception of will, resulting from the
premises enumerated above are mentioned in this and the following para-
graphs. As to these, appeal may moreover be made to every individual
to see them in his own self-consciousness. Everyone will, in the first
place, find in himself the ability to abstract himself from all that he is,
and in this way prove himself able of himself to set every content within
himself, and thus have in his own consciousness an illustration of all the
subsequent phases.
5. The will contains (a) the element of pure indeterminateness, i.e.,
the pure doubling of the I back in thought upon itself. In this process
every limit or content, present though it be directly by way of nature, as
in want, appetite or impulse, or given in any specific way, is dissolved.
The Philosophy of Right/31
Thus we have the limitless infinitude of absolute abstraction, or univer-
sality, the pure thought of itself.
Note.—Those who treat thinking and willing as two special, pecu-
liar, and separate faculties, and, further, look upon thought as detrimen-
tal to the will, especially the good will, show from the very start that
they know nothing of the nature of willing—a remark which we shall be
called upon to make a number of times upon the same attitude of mind.—
The will on one side is the possibility of abstraction from every aspect
in which the I finds itself or has set itself up. It reckons any content as a
limit, and flees from it. This is one of the forms of the self-direction of
the will, and is by imaginative thinking insisted upon as of itself free-
dom. It is the negative side of the will, or freedom as apprehended by the
understanding. This freedom is that of the void, which has taken actual
shape, and is stirred to passion. It, while remaining purely theoretical,
appears in Hindu religion as the fanaticism of pure contemplation; but
becoming actual it assumes both in politics and religion the form of a
fanaticism, which would destroy the established social order, remove all
individuals suspected of desiring any kind of order, and demolish any
organization which then sought to rise out of the ruins Only in devasta-
tion does the negative will feel that it has reality. It intends, indeed, to
bring to pass some positive social condition, such as universal equality
or universal religious life. But in fact it does not will the positive reality
of any such condition, since that would carry in its train a system, and
introduce a separation by way of institutions and between individuals.
But classification and objective system attain self consciousness only
by destroying negative freedom. Negative freedom is actuated by a mere
solitary abstract idea, whose realization is nothing but the fury of deso-
lation.
Addition.—This phase of will implies that I break loose from every-
thing, give up all ends, and bury myself in abstraction. It is man alone
who can let go everything, even life. He can commit suicide, an act
impossible for the animal, which always remains only negative, abiding
in a state foreign to itself, to which it must merely get accustomed. Man
is pure thought of himself, and only in thinking has he the power to give
himself universality and to extinguish in himself all that is particular
and definite. Negative freedom, or freedom of the understanding, is one-
sided, yet as this one-sidedness contains an essential feature, it is not to
be discarded. But the defect of the understanding is that it exalts its one-
sidedness to the sole and highest place. This form of freedom frequently
32/G. W. F. Hegel
occurs in history. By the Hindus, e.g., the highest freedom is declared to
be persistence in the consciousness of one’s simple identity with him-
self, to abide in the empty space of one’s own inner being, like the
colourless light of pure intuition, and to renounce every activity of life,
every purpose and every idea. In this way man becomes Brahma; there
is no longer any distinction between finite man and Brahma, every dif-
ference having been swallowed up in this universality. A more concrete
manifestation of this freedom is the fanaticism of political and religious
life. Of this nature was the terrible epoch of the French Revolution, by
which all distinctions in talent and authority were to have been super-
seded. In this time of upheaval and commotion any specific thing was
intolerable. Fanaticism wills an abstraction and not an articulate asso-
ciation. It finds all distinctions antagonistic to its indefiniteness, and
supersedes them. Hence in the French Revolution the people abolished
the institutions which they themselves had set up, since every institution
is inimical to the abstract self-consciousness of equality.
6. (
b) The I is also the transition from blank indefiniteness to the
distinct and definite establishment of a definite content and object, whether
this content be given by nature or produced out of the conception of
spirit. Through this establishment of itself as a definite thing the I be-
comes a reality. This is the absolute element of the finitude or special-
ization of the I.
Note. This second element in the characterization of the I is just as
negative as the first, since it annuls and replaces the first abstract nega-
tivity. As the particular is contained in the universal, so this second
phase is contained already in the first, and is only an establishing of
what the first is implicitly. The first phase, if taken independently, is not
the true infinitude, i.e., the concrete universal, or the conception, but
limited and one-sided. In that it is the abstraction from all definite char-
acter, it has a definite character. Its abstract and one-sided nature con-
stitutes its definite character, its defect and finitude.
The distinct characterization of these two phases of the I is found in
the philosophy of Fichte as also in that of Kant. Only, in the exposition
of Fichte the I, when taken as unlimited, as it is in the first proposition
of his “Wissenschaftslehre,” is merely positive. It is the universally and
identity made by the understanding. Hence this abstract I is in its inde-
pendence to be taken as the truth, to which by way of mere addition
comes in the second proposition, the limitation, or the negative in gen-
eral, whether it be in the form of a given external limit or of an activity
The Philosophy of Right/33
of the I.—To apprehend the negative as immanent in the universal or
self-identical, and also as in the I, was the next step, which speculative
philosophy had to make. Of this want they have no presentiment, who
like Fichte never apprehend that the infinite and finite are, if separated,
abstract, and must be seen as immanent one in the other.
Addition.—This second element makes its appearance as the oppo-
site of the first; it is to be understood in its general form: it belongs to
freedom but does not constitute the whole of it. Here the I passes over
from blank in-determinateness to the distinct establishment of a specific
character as a content or object. I do not will merely, but I will some-
thing. Such a will, as is analysed in the preceding paragraph, wills only
the abstract universal, and therefore wills nothing. Hence it is not a will.
The particular thing, which the will wills is a limitation, since the will,
in order to be a will, must in general limit itself. Limit or negation con-
sists in the will willing something. Particularizing is thus as a rule named
finitude. Ordinary reflection holds the first element, that of the indefi-
nite, for the absolute and higher, and the limited for a mere negation of
this indefiniteness. But this indefiniteness is itself only a negation, in
contrast with the definite and finite. The I is solitude and absolute nega-
tion. The indefinite will is thus quite as much one-sided as the will,
which continues merely in the definite.
7. (
g) The will is the unity of these two elements. It is particularity
turned back within itself and thus led back to universality; it is individu-
ality; it is the self-direction of the I. Thus at one and the same time it
establishes itself as its own negation, that is to say, as definite and lim-
ited, and it also abides by itself, in its self-identity and universality, and
in this position remains purely self-enclosed.— The I determines itself
in so far as it is the reference of negativity to itself; and yet in this self-
reference it is indifferent to its own definite character. This it knows as
its own, that is, as an ideal or a mere possibility, by which it is not
bound, but rather exists in it merely because it establishes itself there.—
This is the freedom of the will, constituting its conception or substantive
reality. It is its gravity, as it were, just as gravity is the substantive
reality of a body.
Note.—Every self-consciousness knows itself as at once universal,
or the possibility of abstracting itself from everything definite, and as
particular, with a fixed object, content or aim. These two elements, how-
ever, are only abstractions. The concrete and true,—and all that is true
is concrete,—is the universality, to which the particular is at first op-
34/G. W. F. Hegel
posed, but, when it has been turned back into itself, is in the end made
equal.—This unity is individuality, but it is not a simple unit as is the
individuality of imaginative thought, but a unit in terms of the concep-
tion (“Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences,” §§112–114). In
other words, this individuality is properly nothing else than the concep-
tion. The first two elements of the will, that it can abstract itself from
everything, and that it is definite through either its own activity or some-
thing else, are easily admitted and comprehended, because in their sepa-
ration they are untrue, and characteristic of the mere understanding.
But into the third, the true and speculative—and all truth, as far as it is
conceived, must be thought speculatively—the understanding declines
to venture, always calling the conception the inconceivable. The proof
and more detailed explanation of this inmost reserve of speculation, of
infinitude as the negativity which refers itself to itself, and of this ulti-
mate source of all activity, life and consciousness, belong to logic, as
the purely speculative philosophy. Here it can be noticed only in passing
that, in the sentences, “The will is universal,” “The will directs itself,”
the will is already regarded as presupposed subject or substratum; but it
is not something finished and universal before it determines itself, nor
yet before this determination is superseded and idealized. It is will only
when its activity is self-occasioned, and it has returned into itself.
Addition.—What we properly call will contains the two above-men-
tioned elements. The I is, first of all, as such, pure activity, the universal
which is by itself. Next this universal determines itself, and so far is no
longer by itself, but establishes itself as another, and ceases to be the
universal. The third step is that the will, while in this limitation, i.e., in
this other, is by itself. While it limits itself, it yet remains with itself, and
does not lose its hold of the universal. This is, then, the concrete concep-
tion of freedom, while the other two elements have been thoroughly
abstract and one-sided. But this concrete freedom we already have in
the form of perception, as in friendship and love. Here a man is not one-
sided, but limits himself willingly in reference to another, and yet in this
limitation knows himself as himself. In this determination he does not
feel himself determined, but in the contemplation of the other as another
has the feeling of himself. Freedom also lies neither in indeterminate-
ness nor in determinate-ness, but in both. The wilful man has a will
which limits itself wholly to a particular object, and if he has not this
will, he supposes himself not to be free. But the will is not bound to a
particular object, but must go further, for the nature of the will is not to
The Philosophy of Right/35
be one-sided and confined. Free will consists in willing a definite object,
but in so doing to be by itself and to return again into the universal.
8. If we define this particularizing (
b §6) further, we reach a distinc-
tion in the forms of the will, (a) In so far as the definite character of the
will consists in the formal opposition of the subjective to the objective
or external direct existence, we have the formal will as a self conscious-
ness; which finds an outer world before it. The process by which indi-
viduality turns back in its definiteness into itself, is the translation of the
subjective end, through the intervention of an activity and a means, into
objectivity. In the absolute spirit, in which all definite character is thor-
oughly its own and true (“Encyclop.” §363), consciousness is only one
side, namely, the manifestation or appearance of the will, a phase which
does not require detailed consideration here.
Addition.—The consideration of the definite nature of the will be-
longs to the understanding, and is not in the first instance speculative.
The will as a whole, not only in the sense of its content, but also in the
sense of its form, is determined. Determinate character on the side of
form is the end, and the execution of the end. The end is at first merely
something internal to me and subjective, but it is to be also objective and
to cast away the defect of mere subjectivity. It may be asked, why it has
this defect. When that which is deficient does not at the same time tran-
scend its defect, the defect is for it not a defect at all. The animal is to us
defective, but not for itself. The end, in so far as it is at first merely ours,
is for us a defect, since freedom and will are for us the unity of subjec-
tive and objective. The end must also be established as objective; but
does not in that way attain a new one-sided character, but rather its
realization.
9 (b). In so far as the definite phases of will are its own peculiar
property or its particularization turned back into itself, they are content.
This content, as content of the will, is for it, by virtue of the form given
in (a), an end, which exists on its inner or subjective side as the imagina-
tive will, but by the operation of the activity, which converts the subjec-
tive into the objective, it is realized, completed end.
10. The content or determinate phase of will is in the first instance
direct or immediate. Then the will is free only in itself or for us, i.e., it is
the will in its conception. Only when it has itself as an object is it also
for itself, and its implicit freedom becomes realized.
Note.—At this standpoint the finite implies that whatever is in it-
self, or according to its conception, has an existence or manifestation
36/G. W. F. Hegel
different from what it is for itself. For example the abstract separate-
ness of nature is in itself space, but for itself time. Here, two things are
to be observed, (1) that because the truth is the idea, when any object or
phase is apprehended only as it is in itself or in conception, it is not as
yet apprehended in its truth, and yet (2) that, whatever exists as concep-
tion or in itself, at the same time exists, and this existence is a peculiar
form of the object, as e.g. space. The separation of existence-in-itself or
implicit existence from existence-for-itself or explicit existence is a char-
acteristic of the finite, and constitutes its appearance or merely external
reality. An example of this is to hand in the separation of the natural will
from formal right. The understanding adheres tc mere implicit exist-
ence, and in accordance with this position calls freedom a capacity,
since it is at this point only a possibility. But the understanding regards
this phase as absolute and perennial, and considers the relation of the
will to what it wills or reality as an application to a given material,
which does not belong to the essence of freedom. In this way the under-
standing occupies itself with mere abstractions, and not with the idea
and truth.
Addition.—The will, which is will only according to the concep-
tion, is free implicitly, but is at the same time not free. To be truly free,
it must have a truly fixed content; then it is explicitly free, has freedom
for its object, and is freedom. What is at first merely in conception, i.e.,
implicit, is only direct and natural, We are familiar with this in pictorial
thought also. The child is implicitly a man, at first has reason implicitly,
and is at first the possibility of reason and freedom. He is thus free
merely according to the conception. That which is only implicit does not
yet exist in actuality. A man, who is implicitly rational, must create
himself by working through and out of himself and by reconstructing
himself within himself, before he can become also explicitly rational.
11. The will, which is at first only implicitly free, is the direct or
natural will. The distinctive phases, which the self-determining concep-
tion sets up in the will, appear in the direct will, as a directly present
content. They are impulses, appetites, inclinations, by which the will
finds itself determined by nature. Now this content, with all its attendant
phases, proceeds from the rationality of the will, and is therefore implic-
itly rational; but let loose in its immediate directness it has not as yet the
form of rationality. The content is indeed for me and my own, but the
form and the content are yet different. The will is thus in itself finite.
Note.—Empirical psychology enumerates and describes these im-
The Philosophy of Right/37
pulses and inclinations, and the wants which are based upon them. It
takes, or imagines that it takes this material from experience, and then
seeks to classify it in the usual way. It will be stated below, what the
objective side of impulse is, and what impulse is in its truth, apart from
the form of irrationality which it has as an impulse, and also what shape
it assumes when it reaches existence.
Addition.—Impulse, appetite, inclination are possessed by the ani-
mal also, but it has not will; it must obey impulse, if there is no external
obstacle. Man, however, is the completely undetermined, and stands
above impulse, and may fix and set it up as his. Impulse is in nature, but
it depends on my will whether I establish it in the I. Nor can the will be
unconditionally called to this action by the fact that the impulse lies in
nature.
12. The system of this content, as it occurs directly in the will,
exists only as a multitude or multiplicity of impulses, every one of which
is mine in a general way along with others, but is at the same time
universal and undetermined, having many objects and ways of satisfac-
tion. The will, by giving itself in this two-fold indefiniteness the form of
individuality (§7), resolves, and only as resolving is it actual.
Note.—Instead of to “resolve,” i.e. to supersede the indefinite con-
dition in which a content is merely possible, our language has the ex-
pression “decide” (“unfold itself”). The indeterminate condition of the
will, as neutral but infinitely fruitful germ of all existence, contains
within itself its definite character and ends, and brings them forth solely
out of itself.
13. By resolution will fixes itself as the will of a definite individual,
and as thereby distinguishing itself” from another. However apart from
this finite character which it has as consciousness (§8), the immediate
will is in virtue of the distinction between its form and its content for-
mal. Hence its resolution as such is abstract, and its content is not yet
the content and work of its freedom.
Note.—To the intelligence, as thinking, the object or content re-
mains universal; the intelligence retains the form merely of a universal
activity. Now the universal signifies in will that which is mine, i.e. it is
individuality. And yet, also, the direct and formal will is abstract; its
individuality is not yet filled with its free universality. Hence at the be-
ginning the peculiar finitude of the intelligence is in will, and only by
exalting itself again to thought and giving itself intrinsic universality
does the will transcend the distinction of form and content and make
38/G. W. F. Hegel
itself objective infinite will. It is therefore a misunderstanding of the
nature of thought and will to suppose that in the will man is infinite,
while in thought and even in reason he is limited. In so far as thought
and will are still distinct, the reverse is rather the case, and thinking
reason, when it becomes will, assigns itself to finitude.
Addition.—A will which resolves nothing, is not an actual will; that
which is devoid of definite character never reaches a volition. The rea-
son for hesitation may lie in a sensitiveness, which is aware that in
determining itself it is engaged with what is finite, is assigning itself a
limit, and abandoning its infinity; it may thus hold to its decision not to
renounce the totality which it intends. Such a feeling is dead, even when
it aims to be something beautiful. “Who will be great,” says Goethe,
“must be able to limit himself.” By volition alone man enters actuality,
however distasteful it may be to him; for indolence will not desert its
own self-brooding, in which it clings to a universal possibility. But pos-
sibility is not yet actuality. Hence the will, which is secure simply of
itself, does not as yet lose itself in any definite reality.
14. The finite will, which has merely from the standpoint of form
doubled itself back upon itself, and has become the infinite and self-
secluded I (§5), stands above its content of different impulses and also
above the several ways by which they are realized and satisfied. At the
same time, as it is only formally infinite, it is confined to this very con-
tent as the decisive feature of its nature and external actuality, although
it is undetermined and not confined to one content rather than another
(§§6, 11). As to the return of the I into itself such a will is only a pos-
sible will, which may or may not be mine, and the I is only the possibil-
ity of deputing itself to this or that object. Hence amongst these definite
phases, which in this light are for the I external, the will chooses.
15. Freedom of the will is in this view of it caprice, in which are
contained both a reflection, which is free and abstracted from every-
thing, and a dependence upon a content or matter either internally or
externally provided. Since the content is in itself or implicitly necessary
as an end, and in opposition to this reflection is a definite possibility,
caprice, when it is will, is in its nature contingent.
Note.—The usual idea of freedom is that of caprice. It is a midway
stage of reflection between the will as merely natural impulse and the
will as free absolutely. When it is said that freedom as a general thing
consists in doing what one likes, such an idea must be taken to imply an
utter lack of developed thought, containing as yet not even a suspicion
The Philosophy of Right/39
of what is meant by the absolutely free will, right, the ethical system,
etc. Reflection, being the formal universality and unity of self-conscious-
ness, is the will’s abstract certitude of its freedom, but it is not yet the
truth of it, because it has not as yet itself for content and end; the subjec-
tive side is still different from the objective. Thus the content in such a
case remains purely and completely finite. Caprice, instead of being
will in its truth, is rather will in its contradiction.
In the controversy carried on, especially at the time of the metaphysic
of Wolf, as to whether the will is really free, or our consciousness of its
freedom is a delusion, it was this caprice which was in the minds of both
parties. Against the certitude of abstract self-direction, determinism
rightly opposed a content, which was externally presented, and not be-
ing contained in this certitude came from without. It did not matter
whether this “without” were impulse, imagination, or in general a con-
sciousness so filled that the content was not the peculiar possession of
the self-determining activity as such. Since only the formal element of
free self-direction is immanent in caprice, while the other element is
something given to it from without, to take caprice as freedom may
fairly be named a delusion. Freedom in every philosophy of reflection,
whether it be the Kantian or the Eriesian, which is the Kantian super-
ficialized, is nothing more than this formal self-activity.
Addition.—Since I have the possibility of determining myself in
this or that way, since I have the power of choice, I possess caprice, or
what is commonly called freedom. This choice is due to the universality
of the will, enabling me to make my own this thing or another. This
possession is a particular content, which is therefore not adequate to
me, but separated from me, and is mine only in possibility; just as I am
the possibility of bringing myself into coincidence with it. Hence choice
is due to the indeterminateness of the I, and to the determinateness of a
content. But as to this content the will is not free, although it has in itself
formally the side of infinitude. No such content corresponds to will; in
no content can it truly find itself. In caprice it is involved that the con-
tent is not formed by the nature of my will, but by contingency. I am
dependent upon this content. This is the contradiction contained in ca-
price. Ordinary man believes that he is free, when he is allowed to act
capriciously, but precisely in caprice is it inherent that he is not free.
When I will the rational, I do not act as a particular individual but
according to the conception of ethical observance in general. In an ethi-
cal act I establish not myself but the thing. A man, who acts perversely,
40/G. W. F. Hegel
exhibits particularity. The rational is the highway on which every one
travels, and no one is specially marked. When a great artist finishes a
work we say: “It must be so.” The particularity of the artist has wholly
disappeared and the work shows no mannerism. Phidias has no manner-
ism; the statue itself lives and moves. But the poorer is the artist, the
more easily we discern himself, his particularity and caprice. If we ad-
here to the consideration that in caprice a man can will what he pleases,
we have certainly freedom of a kind; but again, if we hold to the view
that the content is given, then man must be determined by it, and in this
light is no longer free.
16. What is resolved upon and chosen (§14) the will may again give
up (§5). Yet, even with the possibility of transcending any other content
which it may substitute, and of proceeding in this way ad infinitum, the
will does not advance beyond finitude, because every content in turn is
different from the form and is finite. The opposite aspect, namely in
determinateness, irresolution or abstraction, is also one-sided.
17. Since the contradiction involved in caprice (§15) is the dialectic
of the impulses and inclinations, it is manifested in their mutual antago-
nism. The satisfaction of one demands the subjection and sacrifice of
the satisfaction of another. Since an impulse is merely the simple ten-
dency of its own essential nature, and has no measure in itself, to sub-
ject or sacrifice the satisfaction of any impulse is a contingent decision
of caprice. In such a case caprice may act upon the calculation as to
which impulse will bring the greater satisfaction, or may have some
other similar purpose.
Addition.—Impulses and inclinations are in the first instance the
content of will, and only reflection transcends them. But these impulses
are self-directing, crowding upon and jostling one another, and all seek-
ing to be satisfied. To set all but one in the background, and put myself
into this one, is to limit and distort myself, since I, in so doing, renounce
my universality, which is a system of all the impulses. Just as little help
is found in a mere subordination of them, a course usually followed by
the understanding. There is available no criterion by which to make
such an arrangement, and hence the demand for a subordination is usu-
ally sustained by tedious and irrelevant allusions to general sayings.
18. With regard to the moral estimate of impulses, dialectic appears
in this form. The phases of the direct or natural will are immanent and
positive, and thus good. Hence man is by nature good. But natural char-
acteristics, since they are opposed to freedom and the conception of the
The Philosophy of Right/41
spirit, and are, hence, negative, must be eradicated. Thus man is by
nature evil. To decide for either view is a matter of subjective caprice.
Addition.—The Christian doctrine that man is by nature evil is loftier
than the opposite that he is naturally good, and is to be interpreted philo-
sophically in this way. Man as spirit is a free being, who need not give
way to impulse. Hence in his direct and unformed condition, man is in a
situation in which he ought not to be, and he must free himself. This is
the meaning of the doctrine of original sin, without which Christianity
would not be the religion of freedom.
19. In the demand that impulses must be purified is found the gen-
eral idea that they must be freed from the form of direct subjection to
nature, and from a content that is subjective and contingent, and must
be restored to their substantive essence. The truth contained in this in-
definite demand is that impulses should be phases of will in a rational
system. To apprehend them in this way as proceeding from the concep-
tion is the content of the science of right.
Note.—The content of this science may, in all its several elements,
right, property, morality, family, state, be represented in this way, that
man has by nature the impulse to right, the impulse to property, to mo-
rality, to sexual love, and to social life. If instead of this form, which
belongs to empirical psychology, a philosophic form be preferred, it
may be obtained cheap from what in modern times was reputed and still
is reputed to be philosophy. He will then say that man finds in himself as
a fact of consciousness that he wills right, property, the state, etc. Later
will be given still another form of the content which appears here in the
shape of impulses, that, namely, of duties.
20. The reflection which is brought to bear upon impulses, placing
them before itself, estimating them, comparing them with one another,
and contrasting them with their means and consequences, and also with
a whole of satisfaction, namely happiness, brings the formal universal
to this material, and in an external way purifies it of its crudity and
barbarism. This propulsion by the universality of thought is the abso-
lute worth of civilization (§187).
Addition.—In happiness thought has already the upper hand with
the force of natural impulse, since it is not satisfied with what is mo-
mentary, but requires happiness as a whole. This happiness is depen-
dent upon civilization to the extent to which civilization confirms the
universal. But in the ideal of happiness there are two elements. There is
(1) a universal that is higher than all particulars; yet, as the content of
42/G. W. F. Hegel
this universal is in turn only universal pleasure, there arises once more
the individual, particular and finite, and retreat must be made to im-
pulse; (2) Since the content of happiness lies in the subjective percep-
tion of each individual, this universal end is again particular; nor is
there present in it any true unity of content and form.
21. But the truth of this formal universality, which taken by itself is
undetermined and finds definite character in externally given material,
is the self-directing universality which is will or freedom. Since the will
has as its object, content and end, universality itself, and thus assumes
the form of the infinite, it is free not only in itself or implicitly, but for
itself or explicitly. It is the true idea.
Note.—The self-consciousness of the will in the form of appetite or
impulse is sensible, the sensible in general indicating the externality of
self-consciousness, or that condition in which self-consciousness is out-
side of itself. Now this sensible side is one of the two elements of the
reflecting will, and the other is the abstract universality of thought. But
the absolute will has as its object the will itself as such in its pure uni-
versality. In this universality the directness of the natural will is super-
seded, and so also is the private individuality which is produced by
reflection and infects the natural condition. But to supersede these and
lift them into the universal, constitutes the activity or thought. Thus the
self-consciousness, which purifies its object, content or end, and exalts
it to universality, is thought carrying itself through into will. It is at this
point that it becomes clear that the will is true and free only as thinking
intelligence. The slave knows not his essence, his infinitude, his free-
dom; he does not know himself in his essence, and not to know himself
is not to think himself. The self-consciousness, which by thought appre-
hends that itself is essence, and thus puts away from itself the accidental
and untrue, constitutes the principle of right, morality, and all forms of
ethical observance. They who, in speaking philosophically of right,
morality, and ethical observance, would exclude thought and turn to
feeling, the heart, the breast, and inspiration, express the deepest con-
tempt for thought and science. And science itself, overwhelmed with
despair and utter insipidity, makes barbarism and absence of thought a
principle, and so far as in it lay robbed men of all truth, dignity, and
worth.
Addition.—In philosophy truth is had when the conception corre-
sponds to reality. A body is the reality, and soul is the conception. Soul
and body should be adequate to each other. A dead man is still an exist-
The Philosophy of Right/43
ence, but no longer a true existence; it is a reality void of conception.
For that reason the dead body decays. So with the true will; that which
it wills, namely, its content, is identical with it, and so freedom wills
freedom.
22. The will which exists absolutely is truly infinite, because its
object being the will itself, is for it not another or a limitation. In the
object the will has simply reverted into itself. Moreover, it is not mere
possibility, capacity, potentiality (potentia), but infinitely actual (infini-
tum actu), because the reality of the conception or its visible externality
is internal to itself.
Note.—Hence when the free will is spoken of without the qualifica-
tion of absolute freedom, only the capacity of freedom is meant, or the
natural and finite will (§11), and, notwithstanding all words and opin-
ions to the contrary, not the free will. Since the understanding compre-
hends the infinite only in its negative aspect, and hence as a beyond, it
thinks to do the infinite all the more honour the farther it removes it into
the vague distance, and the more it takes it as a foreign thing. In free will
the true infinite is present and real; it is itself the actually present self-
contained idea.
Addition.—The infinite has rightly been represented as a circle. The
straight line goes out farther and farther, and symbolizes the merely
negative and bad infinite, which, unlike the true, does not return into
itself. The free will is truly infinite, for it is not a mere possibility or
disposition. Its external reality is its own inner nature, itself.
23. Only in this freedom is the will wholly by itself, because it re-
fers to nothing but itself, and all dependence upon any other thing falls
away.—The will is true, or rather truth itself, because its character con-
sists in its being in its manifested reality, or correlative opposite, what it
is in its conception. In other words, the pure conception has the percep-
tion or intuition of itself as its end and reality.
24. The will is universal, because in it all limitation and particular
individuality are superseded. These one-sided phases are found only in
the difference between the conception and its object or content, or, from
another standpoint, in the difference between the conscious independent
existence of the subject, and the will’s implicit, or self-involved exist-
ence, or between its excluding and concluding individuality, and its uni-
versality.
Note.—The different phases of universality are tabulated in the logic
(“Encyclop. of the Phil. Sciences,” §§118–126). Imaginative thinking
44/G. W. F. Hegel
always takes universality in an abstract and external way. But absolute
universality is not to be thought of either as the universality of reflec-
tion, which is a kind of concensus or generality, or, as the abstract uni-
versality and self-identity, which is fashioned by the understanding (§6,
note), and keeps aloof from the individual. It is rather the concrete, self-
contained, and self-referring universality, which is the substance, intrin-
sic genus, or immanent idea of self-consciousness. It is a conception of
free will as the universal, transcending its object, passing through and
beyond its own specific character, and then becoming identical with
itself.—This absolute universal is what is in general called the rational,
and is to be apprehended only in this speculative way.
25. The subjective side of the will is the side of its self-conscious-
ness and individuality (§7), as distinguished from its implicit concep-
tion. This subjectivity is (
a) pure form or absolute unity of self-con-
sciousness with itself. This unity is the equation “I = I,” consciousness
being characterized by a thoroughly inward and abstract self-depen-
dence. It is pure certitude of itself in contrast with the truth; (
b) particu-
larity of will, as caprice with its accidental content of pleasurable ends;
(
g) in general a one-sided form (§8), in so far as that which is willed is
at first an unfulfilled end, or a content which simply belongs to self-
consciousness.
26. (
a) In so far as the will is determined by itself, and is in accord
with its conception and true, it is wholly objective will. (
b) But objective
self-consciousness, which has not the form of the infinite, is a will sunk
in its object or condition, whatever the content of that may be. It is the
will of the child, or the will present in slavery or superstition, (
g) Objec-
tivity is finally a one-sided form in opposition to the subjective phase of
will; it is direct reality, or external existence. In this sense the will be-
comes objective only by the execution of its ends.
Note.—These logical phases of subjectivity and objectivity, since
they are often made use of in the sequel, are here exposed, with the
express purpose of noting that it happens with them as with other dis-
tinctions and opposed aspects of reflection; they by virtue of their finite
and dialectic character pass over into their opposites. For imagination
and understanding the meanings of antithetic phases are not convertible,
because their identity is still internal. But in will, on the contrary, these
phases, which ought to be at once abstract and yet also sides of that
which can be known only as concrete, lead of themselves to identity, and
to an exchange of meanings. To the understanding this is unintelligible.—
The Philosophy of Right/45
Thus, e.g., the will as a freedom which exists in itself, is subjectivity
itself; thus subjectivity is the conception of the will, and therefore its
objectivity. But subjectivity is finite in opposition to objectivity, yet in
this opposition the will is not isolated, but in intricate union with the
object; and thus its finitude consists quite as much in its not being sub-
jective, etc.—What in the sequel is to be meant by the subjective or the
objective side of the will, has each time to be made clear from the con-
text, which will supply their positions in relation to the totality.
Addition.—It is ordinarily supposed that subjective and objective
are blank opposites; but this is not the case. Bather do they pass into one
another, for they are not abstract aspects like positive and negative, but
have already a concrete significance. To consider in the first instance
the expression “subjective;” this may mean an end which is merely the
end of a certain subject. In this sense a poor work of art, that is not
adequate to the thing, is merely subjective. But, further, this expression
may point to the content of the will, arid is then of about the same
meaning as capricious; the subjective content then is that which belongs
merely to the subject. In this sense bad acts are merely subjective. Fur-
ther, the pure, empty I may be called subjective, as it has only itself as
an object, and possesses the power of abstraction from all further con-
tent. Subjectivity has, moreover, a wholly particular and correct mean-
ing in accordance with which anything, in order to win recognition from
me, has to become mine and seek validity in me. This is the infinite
avarice of subjectivity, eager to comprehend and consume everything
within the simple and pure I.
Similarly we may take the objective in different ways. By it we may
understand anything to which we give existence in contrast to ourselves,
whether it be an actual thing or a mere thought, which we place over
against ourselves. By it also we understand the direct reality, in which
the end is to be realized. Although the end itself is quite particular and
subjective, we yet name it objective after it has made its appearance.
Further, the objective will is also that in which truth is; thus, God’s will,
the ethical will also, are objective. Lastly, we may call the will objec-
tive, when it is wholly submerged in its object, as, e.g., the child’s will,
which is confiding and without subjective freedom, and the slave’s will,
which does not know itself as free, and is thus a will-less will. In this
sense any will is objective, if it is guided in its action by a foreign au-
thority, and has not yet completed the infinite return into itself.
27. The absolute character or, if you like, the absolute impulse of
46/G. W. F. Hegel
the free spirit (§21) is, as has been observed, that its freedom shall be
for it an object. It is to be objective in a two-fold sense: it is the rational
system of itself, and this system is to be directly real (§26). There is thus
actualized as idea what the will is implicitly. Hence, the abstract con-
ception of the idea of the will is in general the free will which wills the
free will.
28. The activity of the will, directed to the task of transcending the
contradiction between subjectivity and objectivity, of transferring its
end from subjectivity into objectivity, and yet while in objectivity of
remaining with itself, is beyond the formal method of consciousness
(§8), in which objectivity is only direct actuality. This activity is the
essential development of the substantive content of the idea (§21). In
this development the conception moulds the idea, which is in the first
instance abstract, into the totality of a system. This totality as substan-
tive is independent of the opposition between mere subjective end and
its realization, and in both of these forms is the same.
29. That a reality is the realization of the free will, this is what is
meant by a right. Right, therefore, is, in general, freedom as idea.
Note.—In the Kantian doctrine (Introduction to Kant’s “Theory of
Right”), now generally accepted, “the highest factor is a limitation of
my freedom or caprice, in order that it may be able to subsist alongside
of every other individual’s caprice in accordance with a universal law.”
This doctrine contains only a negative phase, that of limitation. And
besides, the positive phase, the universal law or so-called law of reason,
consisting in the agreement of the caprice of one with that of another,
goes beyond the well-known formal identity and the proposition of con-
tradiction. The definition of right, just quoted, contains the view which
has especially since Rousseau spread widely. According to this view
neither the absolute and rational will, nor the true spirit, but the will and
spirit of the particular individual in their peculiar caprice, are the sub-
stantive and primary basis. When once this principle is accepted, the
rational can announce itself only as limiting this freedom. Hence it is
not an inherent rationality, but only a mere external and formal univer-
sal. This view is accordingly devoid of speculative thought, and is re-
jected by the philosophic conception. In the minds of men and in the
actual world it has assumed a shape, whose horror is without a parallel,
except in the shallowness of the thoughts upon which it was founded.
30. Right in general is something holy, because it is the embodiment
of the absolute conception and self-conscious freedom. But the formal-
The Philosophy of Right/47
ism of right, and after a while of duty also, is due to distinctions arising
out of the development of the conception of freedom. In contrast with
the more formal, abstract and limited right, there is that sphere or stage
of the spirit, in which spirit has brought to definite actuality the further
elements contained in the idea. This stage is the richer and more con-
crete; it is truly universal and has therefore a higher right.
Note.—Every step in the development of the idea of freedom has its
peculiar right, because it is the embodiment of a phase of freedom. When
morality and ethical observance are spoken of in opposition to right,
only the first or formal right of the abstract personality is meant. Moral-
ity, ethical observance, a state-interest, are every one a special right,
because each of these is a definite realization of freedom. They can
come into collision only in so far as they occupy the same plane. If the
moral standpoint of spirit were not also a right and one of the forms of
freedom, it could not collide with the right of personality or any other
right. A right contains the conception of freedom which is the highest
phase of spirit, and in opposition to it any other kind of thing is lacking
in real substance. Yet collision also implies a limit and a subordination
of one phase to another. Only the right of the world-spirit is the unlim-
ited absolute.
31. The scientific method by which the conception is self-evolved,
and its phases self- developed and self-produced, is not first of all an
assurance that certain relations are given from somewhere or other, and
then the application to this foreign material of the universal. The true
process is found in the logic, and here is presupposed.
Note.—The efficient or motive principle, which is not merely the
analysis but the production of the several elements of the universal, I
call dialectic. Dialectic is not that process in which an object or propo-
sition, presented to feeling or the direct consciousness, is analyzed, en-
tangled, taken hither and thither, until at last its contrary is derived.
Such a merely negative method appears frequently in Plato. It may fix
the opposite of any notion or reveal the contradiction contained in it, as
did the ancient scepticism, or it may in a feeble way consider an ap-
proximation to truth, or modern half-and-half attainment of it, as its
goal. But the higher dialectic of the conception does not merely appre-
hend any phase as a limit and opposite, but produces out of this negative
a positive content and result. Only by such a course is there develop-
ment and inherent progress. Hence this dialectic is not the external agency
of subjective thinking, but the private soul of the content, which unfolds
48/G. W. F. Hegel
its branches and fruit organically. Thought regards this development of
the idea and of the peculiar activity of the reason of the idea as only
subjective, but is on its side unable to make any addition. To consider
anything rationally is not to bring reason to it from the outside, and
work it up in this way, but to count it as itself reasonable. Here it is
spirit in its freedom, the summit of self-conscious reason, which gives
itself actuality, and produces itself as the existing world. The business
of science is simply to bring the specific work of the reason, which is in
the thing, to consciousness.
32. The phases of the development of the conception are themselves
conceptions. And yet, because the conception is essentially the idea,
they have the form of manifestations. Hence the sequence of the concep-
tions, which arise in this way, is at the same time a sequence of realiza-
tions, and are to be by science so considered.
Note.—In a speculative sense the way, in which a conception is
manifested in reality, is identical with a definite phase of the conception.
But it is noteworthy that, in the scientific development of the idea, the
elements, which result in a further definite form, although preceding
this result as phases of the conception, do not in the temporal develop-
ment go before it as concrete realizations.
Thus, as will be seen later, that stage of the idea which is the family
presupposes phases of the conception, whose result it is. But that these
internal presuppositions should be present in such visible realizations as
right of property, contract, morality, etc., this is the other side of the
process, which only in a highly developed civilization has attained to a
specific realization of its elements.
Addition.—The idea must always go on determining itself within
itself, since at the beginning it is only abstract conception. However,
this initial abstract conception is never given up, but only becomes in-
wardly richer, the last phase being the richest. The earlier and merely
implicit phases reach in this way free self-dependence, but in such a
manner that the conception remains the soul which holds everything
together, and only through a procedure immanent within itself arrives at
its own distinctions. Hence the last phase falls again into a unity with
the first, and it cannot be said that the conception ever comes to some-
thing new. Although the elements of the conception appear to have fallen
apart when they enter reality, this is only a mere appearance. Its super-
ficial character is revealed in the process, since all the particulars fi-
nally turn back again into the conception of the universal. The empirical
The Philosophy of Right/49
sciences usually analyze what they find in pictorial ideas, and if the
individual is successfully brought back to the general, the general prop-
erty is then called the conception. But this is not our procedure. We
desire only to observe how the conception determines itself, and com-
pels us to keep at a distance everything of our own spinning and think-
ing. But what we get in this way is one series of thoughts and another
series of realized forms. As to these two series, it may happen that the
order of time of the actual manifestations is partly different from the
order of the conception. Thus it cannot, e.g., be said that property ex-
isted before the family, and yet, in spite of that it is discussed before the
family is discussed. The question might also be raised here, Why do we
not begin with the highest, i.e., with concrete truth? The answer is, be-
cause we desire to see truth in the form of a result, and it is an essential
part of the process to conceive the conception first of all as ab-stract
The actual series of realizations of the conception is thus for us in due
course as follows, even although in actuality the order should be the
same. Our process is this, that the abstract forms reveal themselves not
as self-subsistent but as untrue.
Division of the Work.
33. According to the stages in the development of the idea of the abso-
lutely free will,
A
. The will is direct or immediate; its conception is therefore ab-
stract, i.e., personality, and its embodied reality is a direct external thing.
This is the sphere of abstract or formal right.
B
. The will, passing out of external reality, turns back into itself. Its
phase is subjective individuality, and it is contrasted with the universal.
This universal is on its internal side the good, and on its external side a
presented world, and these two sides are occasioned only by means of
each other. In this sphere the idea is divided, and exists in separate ele-
ments. The right of the subjective will is in a relation of contrast to the
right of the world, or the right of the idea. Here, however, the idea exists
only implicitly. This is the sphere of morality.
C
. The unity and truth of these two abstract elements. The thought
idea of the good is realized both in the will turned back into itself, and
also in the external world. Thus freedom exists as real substance, which
is quite as much actuality and necessity as it is subjective will. The idea
here is its absolutely universal existence, viz., ethical observance. This
ethical substance is again,
50/G. W. F. Hegel
a. Natural spirit; the family,
b. The civic community, or spirit in its dual existence and mere
appearance,
c. The state, or freedom, which, while established in the free self-
dependence of the particular will is also universal and objective. This
actual and organic spirit (
a) is the spirit of a nation, (b) is found in the
relation to one another of national spirits, and (
g) passing through and
beyond this relation is actualized and revealed in world history as the
universal world-spirit, whose right is the highest.
Note.—It is to be found in the speculative logic, and here is presup-
posed, that a thing or content, which is established first of all according
to its conception, or implicitly, has the form of direct existence. The
conception, however, when it has the form of the conception is explicit,
and no longer is a direct existence. So, too, the principle, upon which
the division of this work proceeds, is presupposed. The divisions might
be regarded as already settled by history, since the different stages must
be viewed as elements in the development of the idea, and therefore as
springing from the nature of the content itself. A philosophic division is
not an external classification of any given material, such a classifica-
tion as would be made according to one or several schemes picked up at
random, but the inherent distinctions of the conception itself. Morality
and ethical observance, which are usually supposed to mean the same
thing, are here taken in essentially different meanings. Meanwhile even
imaginative thought seems to make a distinction between them. In the
usage of Kant the preference is given to the term morality, and the prac-
tical principles of his philosophy limit themselves wholly to this stand-
point, making impossible the standpoint of ethical observance, and in-
deed expressly destroying and abolishing it. Although morality and eth-
ics have the same meaning according to their etymology, yet these dif-
ferent words may be used for different conceptions.
Addition.—When we speak of right, we mean not only civil right,
which is the usual significance of the word, but also morality, ethical
observance and world-history. These belong to this realm, because the
conception taking them in their truth, brings them all together. Free will,
in order not to remain abstract, must in the first instance give itself
reality; the sensible materials of this reality are objects, i.e., external
things. This first phase of freedom we shall know as property. This is
the sphere of formal and abstract right, to which belong property in the
more developed form of contract and also the injury of right, i.e., crime
The Philosophy of Right/51
and punishment. The freedom, we have here, we name person, or, in
other words, the subject who is free, and indeed free independently, and
gives himself a reality in things. But this direct reality is not adequate to
freedom, and the negation of this phase is morality. In morality I am
beyond the freedom found directly in this thing, and have a freedom in
which this directness is superseded. I am free in myself, i.e., in the sub-
jective. In this sphere we come upon my insight, intention, and end, and
externality is established as indifferent. The good is now the universal
end, which is not to remain merely internal to me, but to realize itself.
The subjective will demands that its inward character, or purpose, shall
receive external reality, and also that the good shall be brought to comple-
tion in external existence. Morality, like formal right, is also an abstrac-
tion, whose truth is reached only in ethical observance. Hence ethical
observance is the unity of the will in its conception with the will of the
individual or subject. The primary reality of ethical observance is in its
turn natural, taking the form of love and feeling. This is the family. In it
the individual has transcended his prudish personality, and finds himself
with his consciousness in a totality. In the next stage is seen the loss of
this peculiar ethical existence and substantive unity. Here the family
falls asunder, and the members become independent one of another, be-
ing now held together merely by the bond of mutual need. This is the
stage of the civic community, which has frequently been taken for the
state. But the state does not arise until we reach the third stage, that
stage of ethical observance or spirit, in which both individual indepen-
dence and universal substantivity are found in gigantic union. The right
of the state is, therefore, higher than that of the other stages. It is free-
dom in its most concrete embodiment, which yields to nothing but the
highest absolute truth of the world-spirit.
First Part: Abstract Right.
34. The completely free will, when it is conceived abstractly, is in a
condition of self-involved simplicity. What actuality it has when taken
in this abstract way, consists in a negative attitude towards reality, and
a bare abstract reference of itself to itself. Such an abstract will is the
individual will of a subject. It, as particular, has definite ends, and, as
exclusive and individual, has these ends before itself as an externally
and directly presented world.
Addition.—The remark that the completely free will, when it is taken
abstractly, is in a condition of self-involved simplicity must be under-
52/G. W. F. Hegel
stood in this way. The completed idea of the will is found when the
conception has realized itself fully, and in such a manner that the em-
bodiment of the conception is nothing but the development of the con-
ception itself. But at the outset the conception is abstract. All its future
characters are implied in it, it is true, but as yet no more than implied.
They are, in other words, potential, and are not yet developed into an
articulate whole. If I say, “I am free,” the I, here, is still implicit and has
no real object opposed to it. But from the standpoint of morality as
contrasted with abstract right there is opposition, because there I am a
particular will, while the good, though within me, is the universal. Hence,
at that stage, the will contains within itself the contrast between particu-
lar and universal, and in that way is made definite. But at the beginning
such a distinction does not occur, because in the first abstract unity
there is as yet no progress or modification of any kind. That is what is
meant by saying that the will has the mark of self-involved simplicity or
immediate being. The chief thing to notice at this point is that this very
absence of definite features is itself a definite feature. Absence of deter-
minate character exists where there is as yet no distinction between the
will and its content. But when this lack of definiteness is set in opposi-
tion to the definite, it becomes itself something definite. In other words,
abstract identity becomes the distinguishing feature of the will, and the
will thereby becomes an individual will or person.
35. This consciously free will has a universal side, which consists
in a formal, simple and pure reference to itself as a separate and inde-
pendent unit. This reference is also a self-conscious one though it has no
further content. The subject is thus so far a person. It is implied in
personality that I, as a distinct being, am on all sides completely bounded
and limited, on the side of inner caprice, impulse and appetite, as well as
in my direct and visible outer life. But it is implied likewise that I stand
in absolutely pure relation to myself. Hence it is that in this finitude I
know myself as infinite, universal and free.
Note.—Personality does not arise till the subject has not merely a
general consciousness of himself in some determinate mode of concrete
existence, but rather a consciousness of himself as a completely ab-
stract I, in which all concrete limits and values are negated and declared
invalid. Hence personality involves the knowledge of oneself as an ob-
ject, raised, however, by thought into the realm of pure infinitude, a
realm, that is, in which it is purely identical with itself. Individuals and
peoples have no personality, if they have not reached this pure thought
The Philosophy of Right/53
and self- consciousness. In this way, too, the absolute or completed mind
or spirit may be distinguished from its semblance. The semblance, though
self-conscious, is aware of itself only as a merely natural will with its
sternal objects. The other, as an abstract and pure I, has as itself as its
end and object, and is therefore a person.
Addition.—The abstract will, the will which exists for itself, is a
person. The highest aim of man is to be a person, and yet again the mere
abstraction “person” is not held in high esteem. Person is essentially
different from subject. Subject is only the possibility of personality. Any
living thing at all is a subject, while person is a subject which has its
subjectivity as an object. As a person I exist for myself. Personality is
the free being in pure self-conscious isolation. I as a person am con-
scious of freedom. I can abstract myself from everything, since nothing
is before me except pure personality. Notwithstanding all this I am as a
particular person completely limited. I am of a certain age, height, in
this space, and so on. Thus a person is at one and the same time so
exalted and so lowly a thing. In him is the unity of infinite and finite, of
limit and unlimited. The dignity of personality can sustain a contradic-
tion, which neither contains nor could tolerate anything natural.
36. (1) Personality implies, in general, a capacity to possess rights,
and constitutes the conception and abstract basis of abstract right. This
right, being abstract, must be formal also. Its mandate is: Be a person
and respect others as persons.
37. (2) The particularity of the will, that phase of the will, namely,
which implies a consciousness of my specific interests, is doubtless an
element of the whole consciousness of the will (§34), but it is not con-
tained in mere abstract personality. It is indeed present in the form of
appetite, want, impulse and random desire, but is distinct as yet from
the personality, which is the essence of freedom.— In treating of formal
right therefore, we do not trench upon special interests, such as my
advantage or my well-being, nor have we here to do with any special
reason or intention of the will.
Addition.—Since the particular phases of the person have not as yet
attained the form of freedom, everything relating to these elements is so
far a matter of indifference. When anyone bases a claim upon his mere
formal right, he may be wholly selfish, and often such a claim comes
from a contracted heart and mind. Uncivilized man, in general, holds
fast to his rights, while a more generous disposition is alert to see all
sides of the question. Abstract right is, moreover, the first mere possi-
54/G. W. F. Hegel
bility, and in contrast with the whole context of a given relation is still
formal. The possession of a right gives a certain authority, it is true, but
it is not, therefore, absolutely necessary that I insist upon a right, which
is only one aspect of the whole matter. In a word, possibility is some-
thing, which means that it either may or may not exist.
38. In contrast with the deeper significance of a concrete act in all
its moral and social bearings, abstract right is only a possibility. Such a
right is, therefore, only a permission or indication of legal power. Be-
cause of this abstract character of right the only rule which is uncondi-
tionally its own is merely the negative principle not to injure personality
or anything which of necessity belongs to it. Hence we have here only
prohibitions, the positive form of command having in the last resort a
prohibition as its basis.
39. (3) A person in his direct and definite individuality is related to
a given external nature. To this outer world the personality is opposed
as something subjective. But to confine to mere subjectivity the person-
ality, which is meant to be infinite and universal, contradicts and de-
stroys its nature. It bestirs itself to abrogate the limitation by giving
itself reality, and proceeds to make the outer visible existence its own.
40. Right is at first the simple and direct concrete existence which
freedom gives itself directly. This un-modified existence is
(a) Possession or property. Here freedom is that of abstract will in
general, or of a separate person who relates himself only to himself.
(b) A person by distinguishing himself from himself becomes re-
lated to another person, although the two have fixed existence for each
other except as owners. Their implicit identity becomes realized through
a transference of property by mutual consent, and with the preservation
of their rights. This is contract.
(c) The will in its reference to itself, as in (a), may be at variance
not with some other person, (b), but within itself. As a particular will it
may differ from and be in opposition to its true and absolute self. This is
wrong and crime.
Note.—The division of rights into personal right, real right, and
right to actions is, like many other divisions, intended to systematize the
mass of unorganized material. But this division utterly confuses rights
which presuppose such concrete relations as the family or the state with
those which refer to mere abstract personality. An example of this con-
fusion is the classification, made popular by Kant, of rights into Real
Rights, Personal Rights, and Personal Rights that are Real in kind. It
The Philosophy of Right/55
would take us too far afield to show how contorted and irrational is the
classification of rights into personal and real, a classification which lies
at the foundation of Roman law. The right to actions concerns the ad-
ministration of justice, and does not fall under this branch of the sub-
ject. Clearly it is only personality which gives us a right to things, and
therefore personal right is in essence real right. A thing must be taken in
its universal sense as the external opposite of freedom, so that in this
sense my body and my life are things. Thus real right is the right of
personality as such. In the interpretation of personal right, found in
Roman law, a man is not a person till he has reached a certain status
(Heineccii “Elem. Jur. Civ.,” §lxxv.). In Roman law personality is an
attribute of a class and is contrasted with slavery. The so-called per-
sonal right of Roman law includes not only a right to slaves, a class to
which probably belong the children, not only a right over the class which
has been deprived of right (capitis diminutio), but also family relations.
With Kant, family relations are wholly personal rights which are real in
kind.—The Roman personal right is not the right of a person as such,
but of a special person. It will be afterwards shown that the family
relation is really based upon the renunciation of personality. It cannot
but seem an inverted method to treat of the rights of persons who belong
to definite classes before the universal right of personality.—According
to Kant personal rights arise out of a contract or agreement that I should
give or perform something; this is the jus ad rem of Roman law which
has its source in an obligatio. Only a person, it is true, can perform a
thing through contract; and further, only a person can acquire the right
to such a performance. Yet we cannot, therefore, call such a right per-
sonal. Every sort of right is right of a person; but a right, which springs
out of contract, is not a right to a person, but only to something external
to him, or to be disposed of by him; and this is always a thing.
First Section. Property.
41. A person must give to his freedom an external sphere, in order that
he may reach the completeness implied in the idea. Since a person is as
yet the first abstract phase of the completely existent, infinite will, the
external sphere of freedom is not only distinguishable from him but
directly different and separable.
Addition.—The reasonableness of property consists not in its satis-
fying our needs, but in its superseding and replacing the subjective phase
of personality. It is in possession first of all that the person becomes
56/G. W. F. Hegel
rational. The first realization of my freedom in an external object is an
imperfect one, it is true, but it is the only realization possible so long as
the abstract personality has this firsthand relation to its object.
42. That which is defined as different from the free spirit is both in
its own nature and also for this spirit the external. It is an object, some-
thing not free, impersonal and without rights.
Note.—“Thing,” like “objective,” has two opposite meanings. When
we say “That is the thing or fact,” “It depends on the thing itself, not on
the person,” we mean by “thing” that which is real and substantive. But
it is also contrasted with person, which here includes more than a par-
ticular subject, and then it means the opposite of the real and substan-
tive, and is something merely external.— What is external for the free
spirit, which is different from mere consciousness, is absolutely exter-
nal. Hence nature is to be conceived as that which is external in its very
self.
Addition.—Since a thing has no subjectivity it is external not merely
to a subject, but to itself. Space and time are external. I, as sensible, am
external, spatial, and temporal. My faculty of sense-perception is exter-
nal to itself. An animal may perceive, but the soul of the animal has as
its object not itself, but something external.
43. The person in his direct conception and as a separate individual
has an existence which is purely natural. This existence is something
partly inalienable, partly akin in its nature to the external world.—As
the individual is considered in his first abstract simplicity, reference is
here made only to those features of personality with which he is directly
endowed, not to those which he might proceed to acquire by voluntary
effort.
Note.—Mental endowments, science, art, such matters of religion
as sermons, masses, prayers, blessings of consecrated utensils, inven-
tions also, are objects of exchange, recognized things to be bought and
sold. It is possible to ask, also, if an artist or scholar is in legal posses-
sion of his art, science, or capacity to preach or read mass; and the
question is put on the presumption that these objects are things. Yet one
hesitates to call such gifts, knowledge, powers, mere things, because
although they may be bargained for as a thing, they have an inner spiri-
tual side. Hence the understanding becomes confused as to how they are
to be regarded at law. Before the understanding always arises an exclu-
sive disjunction, which in this case is that something must be either a
thing or not a thing. It is like the disjunctive judgment that a thing must
The Philosophy of Right/57
be either finite or infinite. But, though knowledge, talents, etc., are the
possession of the free mind, and therefore internal to it, they may be
relinquished and given an external existence. (See below.) They would
then fall under the category of things. They are not direct objects at the
first, but the spirit lowers its inner side to the level of the directly exter-
nal.
According to the unjust and immoral finding of the Roman law,
children were things for their father, and he was in legal possession of
them. At the same time he was related to them ethically by the tie of
love, although the value of this relation was much weakened by the legal
usage. In this legal relation there occurs a completely wrong union of
thing and not-thing.
The essential feature of abstract right is that its object is the person
as such, with only those elements added which, belonging to the exter-
nal and visible embodiment of his freedom, are directly different from
him and separable. Other phases it can include only after the conscious
operation of the subjective will. Mental endowments, the sciences, etc.,
come up for treatment only from the standpoint of legal possession. The
possession of the body and the mind, which is acquired by education,
study and habit, is an inward property of the spirit, and does not fall to
be considered here. The process by which a mental possession passes
into the external world and comes under the category of a legal prop-
erty, will be taken up later, under relinquishment.
44. A person has the right to direct his will upon any object, as his
real and positive end. The object thus becomes his. As it has no end in
itself, it receives its meaning and soul from his will. Mankind has the
absolute right to appropriate all that is a thing.
Note.—There is a philosophy which ascribes to the impersonal, to
separate things, as they are directly apprehended, an independent and
absolutely complete reality. There is also a philosophy which affirms
that the mind cannot know what the truth or the thing in itself is. These
philosophies are directly contradicted by the attitude of the free will to
these things. Although the so-called external things seem to have an
independent reality in consciousness as perceiving and imagining, the
free will is the idealization or truth of such reality.
Addition.—A man may own anything, because he is a free will, and
is therefore self-contained and self-dependent. But the mere object is of
an opposite nature. Every man has the right to turn his will upon a thing
or make the thing an object of his will, that is to say, to set aside the
58/G. W. F. Hegel
mere thing and recreate it as his own. As the thing is in its nature exter-
nal, it has no purpose of its own and contains no infinite reference to
itself; it is external to itself. An animal also is external to itself, and is,
so far, a thing. Only the will is the unlimited and absolute, while all
other things in contrast with the will are merely relative. To appropriate
is at bottom only to manifest the majesty of my will towards things, by
demonstrating that they are not self-complete and have no purpose of
their own. This is brought about by my instilling into the object another
end than that which it primarily had. When the living thing becomes my
property it gets another soul than it had. I give it my will. Free will is
thus the idealism which refuses to hold that things as they are can be
self-complete. Realism on the other hand declares them to be absolute in
their finite form. But this realistic philosophy is not shared in by the
animal, which by consuming things proves that they are not absolutely
independent.
45. To have something in my power, even though it be externally, is
possession. The special fact that I make something my own through
natural want, impulse or caprice, is the special interest of possession.
But, when I as a free will am in possession of something, I get a tangible
existence, and in this way first became an actual will. This is the true
and legal nature of property, and constitutes its distinctive character.
Note.—Since our wants are looked upon as primary, the possession
of property appears at first to be a means to their satisfaction; but it is
really the first embodiment of freedom and an independent end.
46. Since property makes objective my personal individual will, it
is rightly described as a private possession. On the other hand, common
property, which may be possessed by a number of separate individuals,
is a mark of a loosely joined company, in which a man may or may not
allow his share to remain at his own choice.
Note.—The elements of nature cannot become private property.—
In the agrarian laws of Rome may be found a conflict between collective
and private ownership of land. Private possession is the more reason-
able, and, even at the expense of other rights, must win the victory.—
Property bound up with family trusts contains an element which is op-
posed to the right of personality and private ownership. Yet private pos-
session must be kept subject to the higher spheres of right, to a corpo-
rate body, e.g., or to the state, as happens when private ownership is
entrusted to a so- called moral person, as in mortmain. Yet these excep-
tions are not to be based on chance, private caprice or personal benefit,
The Philosophy of Right/59
but only on the rational organization of the state. The idea of Plato’s
“Republic” does a wrong to the person, in regarding him as unable to
hold property. The theory of a pious, friendly, or even compulsory broth-
erhood of men, who are to possess all their goods in common, and to
banish the principle of private ownership, easily presents itself to one
who fails to understand the nature of freedom of spirit, and the nature of
right, through mistaking their definite phases. There is a moral or reli-
gious side, also. When the friends of Epicurus proposed to establish a
community of goods, he dissuaded them on the ground that the plan
indicated a lack of confidence in one another, and that those who mis-
trusted one another could not be friends (“Diog. Laërt.” 1. x. n. vi).
Addition.—In property my will is personal. But the person, it must
be observed, is this particular individual, and, thus, property is the em-
bodiment of this particular will. Since property gives visible existence
to my will, it must be regarded as “this” and hence as “mine.” This is the
important doctrine of the necessity of private property. If exceptions
may be made by the state, the state alone can be suffered to make them.
But frequently, and especially in our time, it has restored private posses-
sion. Thus, for instance, many states have rightly abolished cloisters,
because persons, living together in these institutions, have ultimately no
such right to property, as the person has.
47. As a person, I am an individual in only its simplest aspect; more
definitely, I am alive in a particular bodily organism. My body is as to
its content my universal undifferentiated external existence; it is the real
possibility of all definite phases. But also as a person I have my life and
body, as I have other things only in so far as they express my will.
Note.—The view that the individual, not in his actualized existence
but in his direct conception, is to be taken simply as living and having a
physical organism follows from the conception of that phase of life and
spirit, which we know as soul. The details of this conception are found
in the philosophy of nature.
I have organs and life only so far as I will. The animal cannot mu-
tilate or kill itself, but a human being can.
Addition.—Animals do in a manner possess themselves. Their soul
is in possession of their body. But they have no right to their life, be-
cause they do not will it.
48. The body, merely as it stands, is not adequate to spirit. In order
to be a willing instrument and vitalized means, it must first be taken
possession of by the spirit (§57). Still for others I am essentially a free
60/G. W. F. Hegel
being in my body, as I directly have it.
Note.—It is only because I in my living body am a free being, that
my body cannot be used as a beast of burden. In so far as the I lives, the
soul, which conceives and, what is more, is free, is not separated from
the body. The body is the outward embodiment of freedom, and in it the
I is sensible. It is an irrational and sophistic doctrine, which separates
body and soul, calling the soul the thing in itself and maintaining that it
is not touched or hurt when the body is wrongly treated, or when the
existence of a person is subject to the power of another. I can indeed
withdraw out of my existence into myself and make my existence some-
thing external. I can regard any present feeling as something apart from
my real self, and may in this way be free even in chains. But that is an
affair of my will. I exist for others in my body; that I am free for others
is the same thing as that I am free in this outward life. If my body is
treated roughly by others, I am treated roughly.
Since it is I that am sensible, violence offered to my body touches
me instantly and directly. This is the difference between personal as-
sault and injury to any external property. In property my will is not so
vividly present as it is in my body.
49. In my relation to external things, the rational element is that it is
I who own property. But the particular element on the other hand is
concerned with ends, wants, caprices, talents, external circumstances,
etc. (§45). Upon them, it is true, mere abstract possession depends, but
they in this sphere of abstract personality are not yet identical with free-
dom. Hence what and how much I possess is from the standpoint of
right a matter of indifference.
Note.—If we can speak of several persons, when as yet no distinc-
tion has been drawn between one person and another, we may say that
in personality all persons are equal. But this is an empty tautological
proposition, since a person abstractedly considered is not as yet sepa-
rate from others, and has no distinguishing attribute. Equality is the
abstract identity set up by the mere understanding. Upon this principle
mere reflecting thought, or, in other words, spirit in its middle ranges, is
apt to fall, when before it there arises the relation of unity to difference.
This equality would be only the equality of abstract persons as such,
and would exclude all reference to possession, which is the basis of
inequality. Sometimes the demand is made for equality in the division of
the soil of the earth, and even of other kinds of wealth. Such a claim is
superficial, because differences of wealth are due not only to the acci-
The Philosophy of Right/61
dents of external nature but also to the infinite variety and difference of
mind and character. In short, the quality of an individual’s possessions
depends upon his reason, developed into an organic whole. We cannot
say that nature is unjust in distributing wealth and property unequally,
because nature is not free and, therefore, neither just nor unjust. It is in
part a moral desire that all men should have sufficient income for their
wants, and when the wish is left in this indefinite form it is well-meant,
although it, like everything merely well-meant, has no counterpart in
reality. But, further, income is different from possession and belongs to
another sphere, that of the civic community.
Addition. — Since wealth depends upon application, equality in the
distribution of goods would, if introduced, soon be disturbed again. What
does not permit of being carried out, ought not to be attempted. Men are
equal, it is true, but only as persons, that is, only with reference to the
source of possession. Accordingly every one must have property. This
is the only kind of equality which it is possible to consider. Beyond this
is found the region of particular persons, and the question for the first
time comes up, How much do I possess? Here the assertion that the
property of every man ought in justice to be equal to that of every other
is false, since justice demands merely that every one should have prop-
erty. Indeed, amongst persons variously endowed inequality must oc-
cur, and equality would be wrong. It is quite true that men often desire
the goods of others; but this desire is wrong, for right is unconcerned
about differences in individuals.
50. It is a self-evident and, indeed, almost superfluous remark that
an object belongs to him who is accidentally first in possession of it. A
second person cannot take into possession what is already the property
of another.
Addition.—So far we have been chiefly concerned with the proposi-
tion that personality must find an embodiment in property. From what
has been said, it follows that he who is first in possession is likewise
owner. He is rightful owner, not because he is first, but because he is a
free will. He is not first till some one comes after him.
51. In order to fix property as the outward symbol of my personal-
ity, it is not enough that I represent it as name and internally will it to be
mine; I must also take it over into my possession. The embodiment of
my will can then be recognized by others as mine. That the object, of
which I take possession be unowned is a self-evident, negative condition
(§50). Rather it is more than a bare negative, since it anticipates a rela-
62/G. W. F. Hegel
tion to others.
Addition.—A person’s putting his will into an object is the concep-
tion of property, and the next step is the realizing of it. The inner act of
my will, which says that something is mine, must be made recognizable
for others. When I make an object mine, I give it a predicate, which
must be manifested in its outer form, and not remain merely in my inner
will. Children often affirm this earlier act of will against the real pos-
sessing of a thing by others. But for adults such a will is not enough.
The form of subjectivity must be removed by working itself out into
something objective.
52. Active possession makes the material of an object my property,
since the material is not independently its own.
Note.—The material opposes itself to me. Indeed its very nature is
to furnish opposition to me. It exhibits its abstract independence to my
abstract or sentient consciousness. The sentient imagination, it may be
said in passing, puts the truth upside down when it regards the sentient
side of mind as concrete, and the rational as abstract. In reference there-
fore to the will and property this absolute independence of the material
has no truth. Active possession, viewed as an external activity, by which
the universal right of appropriating natural things becomes actualized,
is allied to physical strength, cunning, skill, all the means, in short, by
which one is able to take hold corporeally of a thing. Owing to the
qualitative differences of natural objects, the mastery over and posses-
sion of them has an infinitely diversified meaning, and a corresponding
limitation and contingency. Moreover, no one kind of matter, such as an
element, can be wholly possessed by any number of separate persons. In
order to become a possible object of possession, it must be taken in
separate parts, as a breath of air or draught of water. The impossibility
of owning one kind of matter, or an element, depends finally, not upon
external physical incapacity, but upon the fact that the person, as will, is
not only individual, but directly individual, and that the external exists
for him, therefore, only as a collection of particulars. (§13, note to §43.)
The process, by which we become master and external owner, is in
a sense infinite, and must remain more or less undetermined and incom-
plete. None the less, however, has the material an essential form, be-
cause of which alone it is anything. The more I appropriate this form, so
much the more do I come into real possession of the object. The con-
sumption of food is a through-and- through change of its quality. The
cultivation of skill in my body, and the education of my mind, are also
The Philosophy of Right/63
more or less an active possession by means of thorough-going modifica-
tion. Mind or spirit is above all that which I can make my own. But this
possession is different from property. Property is completed in its rela-
tion to the free will. In the external relation of active possession some-
thing of externality remains as a residue, but with regard to the free will
the owned object has reserved nothing. A matter without qualities, a
something which in property is supposed to remain outside of me, and
to belong wholly to the object, is an empty abstraction, which thought
must expose and defeat.
Addition.—Fichte has raised the question, whether, if I have fash-
ioned an object, its material is also mine. According to his view, if I
have made a cup out of gold, any one may take the gold, provided that
he does no injury to my handiwork. Though we may imagine that form
and substance are separable in that way, the distinction is an empty
subtlety. If I take possession of a field, and plough it, not only is the
furrow mine, but also the ground which belongs to it. It is my will to
take possession of the material, even the whole object. Hence the mate-
rial is not masterless; it is not its own. Even if the material remains
outside of the form which I give the object, the form is a sign that the
object is to be mine. Hence the thing does not stay outside of my will or
purpose. There is consequently nothing in it which can be taken hold of
by another.
53. Property has its more direct phases in the relation of the will to
the object. This relation is (
a) direct and active taking of possession, in
so far as the will is embodied in the object as in something positive. (
b)
In so far as this object is negative towards the will, the will is visibly
embodied in it as something to be negated. This is use. (
g) The return of
the will into itself out of the object; this is relinquishment. These three
phases are the positive, negative, and infinite judgments of the will con-
cerning the object.
A.
The Act of Possession.
54. Taking possession is partly the simple bodily grasp, partly the form-
ing and partly the marking or designating of the object.
Addition.—These modes of taking possession exhibit the progress
from the category of particularity to that of universality. Bodily seizure
can be made only of particular objects, while marking an object is done
by a kind of picture-thinking. In marking I keep before me a representa-
tion, by which I intend that the object shall be mine in its totality, and
64/G. W. F. Hegel
not merely the part which I can hold in my hand.
55. (
a) Corporeal possession, in which I am present directly, and
my will is directly visible, appeals at once to the senses, and from that
standpoint is the most complete kind of possession. But it is after all
only subjective, temporary and greatly limited as well by surroundings
as by the qualities of the object. But if I can connect an object with
anything I have already, or if the two become connected accidentally,
the sphere of direct physical prehension is to some extent enlarged.
Note.—Mechanical forces, weapons, instruments extend the com-
pass of my power. If my ground is washed by the sea or a river, or lies
adjacent to a bit of good hunting country or a pasturage, if it contains
stone or other minerals, if there is any treasure in it or upon it, in each of
these ways possession may be enlarged. It is the same if the enlargement
occurs after I have possession and accidentally, as is the case with so-
called natural accretions, such as alluvia] deposits, and with objects
that are stranded. Everything that is born is also an extension of my
wealth, foetura as they are called; but as they involve an organic rela-
tion, and are not external additions to an object already in my posses-
sion, they are different from the other accessories. All these adjuncts,
some of them mutually exclusive, are possibilities by which one owner
rather than another may the more easily take a piece of land into posses-
sion, or work it up; they may also be viewed as mere accidental accom-
paniments of the object to which they are added. They are in fact exter-
nal concomitants which do not include any conception or living union.
Hence it devolves upon the understanding to bring forward and weigh
reasons for or against their being mine, and to apply the positive edicts
of the law, so that a decision may be reached in accordance with the
relative closeness of the connection between the object and its acces-
sory.
Addition.—The act of possession assumes a separation of parts in
the object. I take no more into my possession than I can touch with my
body. But, secondly, external things have a wider range than I am able
to cover physically. Something else stands in connection with what I
own. Through the hand I exercise the act of ownership, but the compass
of the hand can be enlarged. No animal has this noble member. What I
grasp with it can itself become a means to further prehension. When I
come into possession of a thing, the understanding goes at once over
into it, and as a consequence not only what is directly laid hold upon is
mine, but likewise what is connected with it. At this juncture positive
The Philosophy of Right/65
law must introduce its prescripts, because nothing more than this can be
deduced from the conception.
56. (
b) When something that is mine is formed, it becomes indepen-
dent of me, ceasing to be limited to my presence in this space or time, or
to the presence of my consciousness and will.
Note.—The fashioning of a thing is the kind of active possession
which is most adequate to the idea, because it unites the subjective and
the objective. It varies infinitely according to the quality of the object
and the purpose of the subject. To this head belongs likewise the forma-
tion or nurture of living things, in which my work does not remain some-
thing foreign, but is assimilated, as in the cultivation of the soil, the care
of plants, and the taming, feeding, and tending of animals. It includes
also any arrangement for the more efficient use of natural products or
forces, as well as the effect of one material upon another, etc.
Addition.—This act of forming may in practice assume the greatest
variety of aspects. The soil, which I till, is formed. The forming of the
inorganic is sometimes indirect. When I, for instance, build a windmill,
I have not formed the air, but I form something which will utilize the air.
Yet, as I have not formed the air, I dare not call it mine. Moreover the
sparing of a wild animal’s life may be viewed as a forming, since my
conduct is the preservation of the object. It is the same kind of act as the
training of animals, only that training is more direct, and proceeds more
largely from me.
57. In his direct life, before it is idealized by self-consciousness,
man is merely a natural being, standing outside of his true conception.
Only through the education of his body and mind, mainly by his becom-
ing conscious of himself as free, does he take possession of himself,
become his own property, and stand in opposition to others. This active
possession of himself, conversely, is the giving of actuality to what he is
in conception, in his possibilities, faculties, and disposition. By this pro-
cess he is for the first time securely established as his own, becomes a
tangible reality as distinguished from a simple consciousness of him-
self, and is capable of assuming the form of an object (§43, note).
Note.—We are now in a position to consider slavery. We may set
aside the justification of slavery based upon the argument that it origi-
nates in superior physical force, the taking of prisoners in war, the sav-
ing and preserving of life, upbringing, education, or bestowal of
kindnesses. These reasons all rest ultimately on the ground that man is
to be taken as a merely natural being, living, or, it may even be, choos-
66/G. W. F. Hegel
ing a life which is not adequate to his conception. Upon the same footing
stands the attempted justification of ownership as merely the status of
masters, as also all views of the right to slaves founded on history. The
assertion of the absolute injustice of slavery on the contrary, clinging to
the conception that man, as spiritual, is free of himself, is also a one-
sided idea, since it supposes man to be free by nature. In other words, it
takes as the truth the conception in its direct and unreflective form rather
than the idea. This antinomy, like all others, rests upon the external
thinking, which keeps separate and independent each of two aspects of a
single complete idea. In point of fact, neither aspect, if separated from
the other, is able to measure the idea, and present it in its truth. It is the
mark of the free spirit (§21) that it does not exist merely as conception
or naturally, but that it supersedes its own formalism, transcending
thereby its naked natural existence, and gives to itself an existence, which,
being its own, is free.
Hence the side of the antinomy, which maintains the conception of
freedom, is to be preferred, since it contains at least the necessary point
of departure for the truth. The other side, holding to the existence, which
is utterly at variance with the conception, has in it nothing reasonable or
right at all. The standpoint of the free will, with which right and the
science of right begin, is already beyond the wrong view that man is
simply a natural being, who, as he cannot exist for himself, is fit only to
be enslaved. This untrue phenomenon had its origin in the circumstance
that the spirit had at that time just attained the level of consciousness.
Hence through the dialectical movement of the conception arises the
first inkling of the consciousness of freedom. There is thus by this move-
ment brought to pass a struggle for recognition, and, as a necessary
result, the relation of master and slave. But in order that the objective
spirit, which gives substance to right, may not again be apprehended
only on its subjective side, and that it may not again appear as a mere
unsupported command, intimating that man in his real nature is not
appointed to slavery, it must be seen that the idea of freedom is in truth
nothing but the state.
Addition.—If we hold fast to the side that man is absolutely free, we
condemn slavery. Still it depends on the person’s own will, whether he
shall be a slave or not, just as it depends upon the will of a people
whether or not it is to be in subjection. Hence slavery is a wrong not
simply on the part of those who enslave or subjugate, but of the slaves
and subjects themselves. Slavery occurs in the passage from, the natu-
The Philosophy of Right/67
ral condition of man to his true moral and social condition. It is found in
a world where a wrong is still a right. Under such a circumstance the
wrong has its value and finds a necessary place.
58. (
g) The kind of possession, which is not literal but only repre-
sentative of my will, is a mark or symbol, whose meaning is that it is I
who have put my will into the object. Owing to the variety of objects
used as signs, this kind of possession is very indefinite in its meaning.
Addition.—Of all kinds of possession this by marking is the most
complete, since the others have more or less the effect of a mark. When
I seize or form an object, in each case the result is in the end a mark,
indicating to others that I exclude them, and have set my will in the
object. The conception of the mark is that the object stands not for what
it is, but for what it signifies. The cockade, e.g., means citizenship in a
certain state, although its colour has no connection with the nation, and
represents not itself but the nation. In that man acquires possession
through the use of a sign, he exhibits his mastery over things.
B.
Use of the Object.
59. The object taken into my possession receives the predicate “mine,”
and the will is related to it positively. Yet in this identity the object is
established as something negative, and my will becomes particularized
as a want or desire. But the particular want of one separate will is the
positive, which satisfies itself; while the object is negative in itself, and
exists only for my want and serves it. Use is the realization of my want
through the change, destruction, or consumption of the object, which in
this way reveals that it has no self, and fulfils its nature.
Note.—The view that use is the real nature and actuality of prop-
erty floats before the mind of those who consider that property is dead
and ownerless, if it is being put to no use. This they advance as reason
for laying violent and unlawful hands upon property. But the will of an
owner, by virtue of which a thing is his own, is the fundamental prin-
ciple, of which use is only an external, special, and subordinate mani-
festation.
Addition.—In use is involved a wider relation than in possession by
symbol, because the object, when used, is not recognized in its particu-
lar existence, but is by me negated. It is reduced to a means for the
satisfaction of my wants. When the object and I come together, one of
the two must lose its qualities, if we are to become identical. But I am a
living thing who wills and truly affirms himself, while the object is only
68/G. W. F. Hegel
a natural thing. Therefore it must go to ground and I preserve myself.
This constitutes the superiority and reason of the organic world.
60. Using an object in direct seizure is a single separate act. But
when we have a recurring need, use repeatedly a product which replaces
itself, and seek to preserve its power to replace itself, a direct and single
act of seizure becomes a sign. It is universalized and denotes the posses-
sion of the elemental or organic basis, the conditions of production.
61. A thing has in contrast with me, its possessor, no end of its own
(§42). Its substance as an independent thing is thus a purely external
and unsubstantial existence. As this externality when realized is the use,
to which I put it, so the total use or service of the object is the object
itself in its whole extent. When I am admitted to the complete use of a
thing, I am the owner of it. Apart from the entire range of use, nothing is
left over to be the possession of another.
Addition.—The relation of use to property is the same as that of
substance to accident, of internal to external, of force to its manifesta-
tion. But the force must be manifested; a farm is a farm only as it bears
produce. He who has the use of a farm is the possessor of the whole, and
to suppose another ownership in addition is an empty abstraction.
62. Partial or temporary use, and partial or temporary possession,
or possibility of use, however, are to be distinguished from actual own-
ership. The total use of a thing cannot be mine, while the abstract prop-
erty is somebody else’s. The object would in that case contain a contra-
diction. It would be wholly penetrated by my will and yet contain some-
thing impenetrable, namely, the empty will of another. The relation of
my positive will to the thing would be objective and yet not objective.
Accordingly, possession is essentially free and complete.
Note.—The distinction between right to total use and abstract pos-
session is due to the empty and formal understanding. To it the idea,
which in this case is the unity of possession or the personal will with the
realization of this will, is not true. On the contrary, it holds as true these
two elements in their separation. This distinction of the understanding
implies that an empty mastership of things is an actual relation. If we
could extend the term “aberration” beyond the mere imagination of the
subject, and the reality, with which he is directly at variance, we might
call such a view of property an aberration of personality. How can what
is mine in one single object be without qualification my individual ex-
clusive will, and also the individual exclusive will of someone else?
In the “Institut.” libr. ii. tit. iv. it is said: “Usufructus est jus alienis
The Philosophy of Right/69
rebus utendi, fruendi salva rerum substantia,” and again: “Ne tamen
in universum inutiles essent pro-prietates, semper abscendente
usufructu: placuit certis modis extingui usumfructum et ad proprietatem
reverti.” “Placuit” —as though it were optional, whether or not to give
sense to the formal distinction of the understanding. A pro-prietas sem-
per abscendente usufructu would not only be inutiles, but no longer a
proprietas. Many distinctions regarding property, such as that into res
mancipi and nec mancipi, and that into dominium Quiritarium and
Bonitarium, are merely historical dainties and do not belong to this place,
because they have no relation to the conception of property. But the
relation of the dominium directum to the dominium utile, and that of the
contract which gives heritable right in another’s land, and also the vari-
ous ways of dealing with estates in fee, with their ground rents and other
rents and impositions, have a clear bearing upon the distinction now
under discussion. When these charges are irredeemably imposed, this
formal distinction is indeed present, but it is again transcended when by
the association of certain charges with the dominium utile, the dominium
utile and the dominium directum become the same. If these relations
contained no more that the formal distinction of the understanding, there
would be opposed to each other not two masters (domini), but an owner
and an empty master. But by virtue of the charges or taxes it is two
owners, who stand in relation to each other, though they are not related
by a common possession. In this relation is to be found the transition
from property to use, a transition already operating when ownership,
which was formerly reckoned as the more honourable, is given a sec-
ondary place, while the utile or produce of a dominium directum is
regarded as the essential and rational.
It is fully fifteen hundred years since through the influence of Chris-
tianity the freedom of the person began to flourish, and at least in a
small section of the human race take rank as a universal principle. But
the recognition here and there of the principle of the freedom of property
is, as it were, a thing of yesterday. This is a good illustration from world-
history, of the length of time needed by the spirit to reach self-con-
sciousness, and is a rebuke also to the impatience of opinion.
63. In use the object is a single one, definite in quality and quantity,
and answers to a special need. But its special usefulness, when fixed
quantitatively, can be compared with other objects capable of being put
to the same use, and a special want, served by the object, and indeed any
want may be compared with other wants; and their corresponding ob-
70/G. W. F. Hegel
jects may be also compared. This universal characteristic, which pro-
ceeds from the particular object and yet abstracts from its special quali-
ties is the value. Value is the true essence or substance of the object, and
the object by possessing value becomes an object for consciousness. As
complete owner of the object, I am owner of its value as well as of its
use.
Note.—The feudal tenant is the owner of use only, not of the value.
Addition.—Quality here becomes quantity. Want is a term common
to the greatest variety of things, and enables me to compare them. Thought
in its progress starts from the special quality of an object, passes through
indifference with regard to the quality, and finally reaches quantity. So
in mathematics the circle, ellipse and parabola are specifically different,
and yet the distinction of one curve from another is merely quantitative,
being reduced to a mere quantitative difference in the largeness of their
coefficients. In property the quantitative aspect, which issues from the
qualitative, is value. The qualitative determines the quantum, however,
and is therefore quite as much retained as superseded. When we con-
sider the conception of value, the object is regarded only as a sign, count-
ing not for what it is but for what it is worth. A letter of credit, e.g., is
not a kind of paper, but a sign of another universal, namely, its face
value. The specific value of an object varies according to the want, but
in order to express abstract worth, we use money. Money represents
things, but since it does not represent want itself, but is only a sign of it,
it is again governed by the specific value, which it merely stands for.
One can be owner of an object without being master of its value. A
family, which can neither sell nor pawn its goods, is not master of their
value. But since the restrictions characterizing this form of property,
such as fiefs, property conveyed in trust, etc., are not adequate to the
conception of it, they are largely disappearing.
64. The form of the object and the mark are themselves external
circumstances, deprived of meaning and worth if taken apart from use,
employment, or some such manifestation of the subjective will. The
presence of the will, however, is in time, and its objective reality is
continuance of the subjective manifestation. If the manifestation lapses,
the object, abandoned by the real essence of the will and of possession,
becomes ownerless. Hence I may lose or acquire property through pre-
scription.
Note.—Prescription does not run counter to strict, right and is not
introduced into law merely to cut short the strife and confusion, which
The Philosophy of Right/71
would naturally arise out of old claims. It is founded on the reality of
property, in other words upon the necessity that the will, in order to keep
a thing, must manifest itself in it.—Public monuments are property of
the nation, or rather they, like all works of art intended for use, are
living and self-sufficient ends because of their indwelling soul of re-
membrance and honour. Deprived of this soul they are, so far as the
nation is concerned, without a master, and become casually a private
possession, as has happened with the Greek and Egyptian works of art
in Turkey.—The private right of an author’s family to his works is pre-
scribed for similar reasons. These works become in a sense masterless,
since they, like the monuments, though in an opposite way, become first
common property, and then through various channels, private property.
To set apart land for a cemetery and then not use it, or to set apart land
never to be used, contains an empty unreal caprice. As to traverse this
action does no injury, respect for it cannot be guaranteed.
Addition.—Prescription rests upon the supposition that I have ceased
to look upon the object as mine. If a thing is to remain mine, there must
be a continuous act of will, and this act reveals itself through use or
preservation.— The decline in the value of public monuments was fre-
quently illustrated during the Reformation in institutions founded for
the saying of masses. The spirit of the old confession and therefore of
these buildings had fled, and the buildings could be taken as private
property.
C.
Relinquishment of Property.
65. I may relinquish property, since it is mine only by virtue of my
having put my will into it. I may let a thing go unowned by me or pass it
over to the will and possession of another; but this is possible only so
far as the object is in its nature something external.
Addition.—Prescription is relinquishment without direct declara-
tion of will. True relinquishment is a declaration that I will no longer
regard the object as mine. The process in all its phases may be taken to
be a true taking of possession. First there is the direct prehension; then
by use property is thoroughly acquired; and the third step is the unity of
both these elements, possession through relinquishment.
66. Some goods, or rather substantive phases of life are inalienable,
and the right to them does not perish through lapse of time. These com-
prise my inner personality and the universal essence of my conscious-
ness of myself, and are personality in general, freedom of will in the
72/G. W. F. Hegel
broadest sense, social life and religion.
Note.—What the spirit is in conception, or implicitly, it should also
be in actuality; it should be a person, that is to say, be able to possess
property, have sociality and religion. This idea is itself the conception of
spirit. As causa sui, or free cause, it is that, cujus natura non potest
concipi nisi existens (Spinoza, “Eth.” Def. 1). In this very conception,
namely, that spirit shall be what it is only through itself and by the
infinite return into itself out of its natural and direct reality, lies the
possibility of opposition between what it is only implicitly (§57), and
what it is only explicitly. In the will this opposition is the possibility of
evil, but in general it is the possibility of the alienation of personality
and substantive being; and this alienation may occur either unconsciously
or intentionally. —Examples of the disposal of personality are slavery,
vassalage, inability to own property or lack of complete control over it.
Relinquishment of reason, sociality, morality or religion occurs in su-
perstition; it occurs also if I delegate to others the authority to prescribe
for me what kind of acts I shall commit, as when one sells himself for
robbery, murder, or the possibility of any other crime; it occurs when I
permit others to determine what for me shall be duty or religious truth.
The right to nothing that is inalienable can be forfeited through lapse
of time. The act by which I take possession of my personality and real
being, and establish myself as having rights, responsibilities, and moral
and religious obligations, deprives these attributes of that externality,
which alone gives them the capacity of being possessed by another. Along
with the departure of this externality goes the reference to time or to any
previous consent or complaisance. This return of myself into myself,
being the process by which I establish myself as idea or complete legal
and moral person, does away with the old relation. It removes the vio-
lence which I and others had done to my own conception and reason, the
wrong of having treated the infinite existence of self-consciousness as
something merely extraneous, and of having suffered others to do the
same. This return into myself reveals the contradiction implied in my
having given into the keeping of others my right, morality or religion. I
gave them what I did not myself possess, what, so soon as I do possess
it, exists in essence only as mine, and not as something external.
Addition.—It lies in the nature of the matter that the slave has an
absolute right to make himself free, or that, when anyone has hired out
his morality for robbery and murder, the transaction is absolutely void.
Anyone possesses the competency to annul such an agreement. It is the
The Philosophy of Right/73
same with the letting of religiosity by a priest, who is my confessor. The
inner religious condition every one must adjust by himself. A religiosity,
part of which is handed over to some one else is not genuine, for the
spirit is only one, and must dwell within me. To me it must belong to
unite the act of worship with religious aspiration.
67. The use of single products of my particular physical endow-
ments or mental capacities I may hand over to others for a limited time,
since, when a time limit is recognized, these products may be said to
have an external relation to my genuine and total being. If I were to
dispose of my whole time, made concrete in work, and all my activity, I
would be giving up the essence of my productions. My whole activity
and reality, in short, my personality, would be the property of another.
Note.—This is the same relation as that (§61) between the sub-
stance of an object and its use. As it is only by limiting use that we can
distinguish it from the object, so the use of my powers is to be distin-
guished from these powers themselves, only in so far as it has a quanti-
tative limit. The total number of manifestations of a faculty is the fac-
ulty; the accidents are the substance; the particulars, the universal.
Addition.—The distinction, here analyzed, is that between a slave
and a servant or day-labourer in our own time. The Athenian slave had
possibly lighter occupation and higher kind of mental work than is the
rule with our workmen. But he was a slave notwithstanding, since the
whole circle of his activity was controlled by his master.
68. What is peculiar to a mental product can be externalized and
directly converted into an object, which it is possible for others to pro-
duce. When another person has acquired the object, he may make the
thought or, it may be, the mechanical genius in it, his own; a possibility
which in the case of literary works constitutes the reason and special
value of acquisition. But, over and above this, the new owner comes at
the same time into possession of the general power to express himself in
the same way, and so of making any number of objects of the same kind.
Note.—In works of art the form, which images the thought in an
external material, is so conspicuously the possession of the artist, that
an imitation of it is really a product of the imitator’s mental and me-
chanical skill. But in the case of literature or an invention of some tech-
nical contrivance, the form in which it is externalized is of a mechanical
sort. In a book the thought is presented in a row of particular abstract
signs; in an invention the thought has a wholly mechanical content. The
way to reproduce such things, as mere things, is a matter of ordinary
74/G. W. F. Hegel
skilled labour. Between the two extremes, on the one side a work of art,
and on the other a product of manual labour, there are all stages of
production, some of which incline to one of the extremes, some to the
other.
69. Since the purchaser of such a product of mental skill possesses
the full use and value of his single copy, he is complete and free owner
of that one copy, although the author of the work or the inventor of the
apparatus remains owner of the general method of multiplying such
products. The author or inventor has not disposed directly of the general
method, but may reserve it for his private utterance.
Note.—The justification of the right of the author or inventor can-
not be sought in his arbitrarily making it a condition, when he disposes
of a copy, that the possibility of bringing out other copies shall not
belong to the purchaser, but shall remain in his own hands. The first
question is whether the separation of the object from the power to repro-
duce, which goes with the object, is allowable in thought, and does not
destroy full and free possession (§62). Does it depend upon the arbi-
trary choice of the first producer to reserve to himself the power to
reproduce or dispose of the product of his mind? Or, on the other hand,
may he count it of no value, and give it freely with each separate copy?
Now there is this peculiarity about this power, that through it the object
becomes not merely a possession, but a means of wealth (see §170, and
fol.). This new feature is a special kind of external use, and is different
and separate from the use to which the object was directly appointed. It
is not, as it is called, an accessio naturalis as are foetura. Hence as the
distinction occurs in the sphere of external use, which is naturally ca-
pable of being divided, the reservation of one part, while another is
being disposed of, is not the retention of an ownership without utile.
The primary and most important claim of trade and commerce is to
give them surety against highway robbery. In the same way the primary
though merely negative demand of the sciences and arts is to insure the
workers in these fields against larceny, and give their property protec-
tion. But in the case of a mental product the intention is that others
should comprehend it, and make its imagination, memory, and thought
their own. Learning is not merely the treasuring up of words in the
memory; it is through thinking that the thoughts of others are seized,
and this after-thinking is real learning. Now that which is learned be-
comes in turn something which can be disposed of; and the external
expression of this material may easily assume a form different from the
The Philosophy of Right/75
form into which the original thinker threw his work. Thus those who
have worked over the material a second time may regard as their own
possession whatever money they may be able to extract from their work,
and may contend that they have a right to reproduce it. In the transmis-
sion of the sciences in general, and especially in teaching positive sci-
ence, church doctrine, or jurisprudence, are found the adoption and rep-
etition of thoughts which are already established and expressed. This is
largely the case with writings composed for the same purpose. It is not
possible to state accurately, and establish explicitly by law and right,
just how far the new form, which accrues through repeated expression,
should transmute the scientific treasure or the thoughts of others, who
are still in external possession, into a special mental possession of the
person who re-constructs them; how far, in other words, a repetition of
an author’s work should be called a plagiarism. Hence plagiarism must
be a question of honour, and should be refrained from on that score.
Laws against reprinting protect the property of author and pub-
lisher in a very definite but, indeed, limited measure. The ease with
which one can intentionally alter the form or insert slight modifications
into a large work on science or a comprehensive theory which is the
work of another, and further, the great difficulty, when discoursing on
what one has received, of abiding by the letter of the author, introduce,
in addition to the special purposes requiring such a repetition, an end-
less variety of changes, which stamp upon the foreign article the more
or less superficial impression of something which is one’s own. The
hundreds of compendiums, abridgments, compilations, arithmetics, ge-
ometries, religious tracts, every venture of a critical journal, an annual,
or a cyclopaedia, keep on repeating under the same or an altered title,
although each may be maintained to be something new and unique. Yet
the profit which the work promised the author or inventor in the first
place may be wiped out, or the purpose of both author and imitator may
be defeated, or one may be ruined.
It is noteworthy that the term plagiarism, or scholar’s larceny is no
longer heard. It may be that the principle of honour has dislodged it, or
that the feeling of honour has vanished or ceased to be directed against
plagiarism, or that a small compilation or slight change of form is ranked
as an original and independent production, and so highly esteemed as to
banish all thought of plagiarism.
70. Since personality is something directly present, the comprehen-
sive totality of one’s outer activity, the life, is not external to it. Thus the
76/G. W. F. Hegel
disposal or sacrifice of life is not the manifestation of one’s personality
so much as the very opposite. Hence I have no right to relinquish my
life. Only a moral and social ideal, which submerges the direct, simple
and separate personality, and constitutes its real power, has a right to
life. Life, as such, being direct and unreflected, and death the direct
negation of it, death must come from without as a result of natural
causes, or must be received in the service of the idea from a foreign
hand.
Addition.—The particular person is really a subordinate, who must
devote his life to the service of the ethical fabric; when the state de-
mands his life, he must yield it up. But should the man take his own life?
Suicide may at first glance be looked upon as bravery, although it be the
poor bravery of tailors and maid-servants. Or it may be regarded as a
misfortune, caused by a broken heart. But the point is, Have I any right
to kill myself? The answer is that I, as this individual am not lord over
my life, since the comprehensive totality of one’s activity, the life, falls
within the direct and present personality. To speak of the right of a
person over his life is a contradiction, since it implies a right of a person
over himself. But no one can stand above and execute himself. When
Hercules burnt himself, and Brutus fell upon his sword, this action against
their personality was doubtless of an heroic type; but yet the simple
right to commit suicide must be denied even to heroes.
Transition from Property to Contract.
71. Outward and visible existence, as definite, is essentially existence
for another thing (see note to §48). Thus property, as a visible external
thing, is determined by its relations to other external things, these rela-
tions being both necessary and accidental. But property is also a mani-
festation of will, and the other, for which it exists, is the will of another
person. This reference of will to will is the true and peculiar ground on
which freedom is realized. The means by which I hold property, not by
virtue of the relation of an object to my subjective will, but by virtue of
another will, and hence share in a common will, is contract.
Note.—It is just as much a necesity of reason that men make con-
tracts, exchange, and trade, as that they should have property (§45,
note). In their consciousness it is some want, benevolence, or advan-
tage, which occasions the contract, but really it is reason, or the idea as
it is embodied in the realized will of a free person. It is taken for granted
that contracting parties recognize one another as persons and owners.
The Philosophy of Right/77
Recognition is contained and presupposed in the fact that contract is a
relation of the objective spirit (§35, note to §57).
Addition.—In contract I hold property through a common will. It is
the interest of reason that the subjective will become universal, and ex-
alt itself to this level of realization. In contract the particular will re-
mains, although it is now in conjunction with another will. The univer-
sal will assumes here no higher form than co-operation.
Second Section: Contract.
72. In contract property is no longer viewed on the side of its external
reality, as a mere thing, but rather as containing the elements of will,
another’s as well as my own. Contract is the process which presents and
occasions the contradiction by which I, existing for myself and exclud-
ing another will, am and remain an owner only in so far as I identify
myself with the will of another, and cease to be an owner.
73. Guided by the conception I must relinquish my property not
merely as an external thing (§65), but as property, if my will is to be-
come a genuine factor in reality. But by virtue of this procedure my will,
when relinquished, is another will. The necessary nature of the concep-
tion is thus realized in a unity of different wills, which, neverthless, give
up their differences and peculiarities. But this identity implies not that
one will is identical with the other, but rather that each at this stage
remains an independent and private will.
74. For two absolutely distinct and separate owners there is now
formed one will. While each of them ceases to be an owner through his
own distinct will, the one will remains. Each will gives up a particular
property, and receives the particular property of another, adopting only
that conclusion with which the other coincides.
75. Since the two contracting parties appear as directly independent
persons (
a) contract proceeds from arbitrary choice; (b) the one will
formed by the contract is the work merely of the two interested persons,
and is thus a common, but not an absolutely universal will; (
g) the ob-
ject of the contract is a single external thing, because only such a thing
is subject to relinquishment at their mere option (§65 and fol.).
Note.—Marriage does not come under the conception of contract.
This view is, we must say it, in all its shameless-ness, propounded by
Kant (“Metaph. Anf. der Rechtslehre,” p. 106). Just as little does the
nature of the state conform to contract, whether the contract be regarded
as a compact of all with all, or of all with the prince or government.—
78/G. W. F. Hegel
The introduction of the relations of contract and private property into
the functions of the state has produced the greatest confusion both in the
law and in real life. In earlier times civil rights and duties were thought
and maintained to be a directly private possession of particular indi-
viduals in opposition to the rights of prince and state. In more recent
years, also, the rights of prince and state have been treated as objects of
covenant. They are said to be based on contract, or the mere general
consent of those who wish to form a state. Different as these two views
of the state are, they agree in taking the phases of private property into
another and a higher region. This will be referred to again when we
come to speak of ethical observances and the state.
Addition.—It is a popular view in modern times that the state is a
contract of all with all. All conclude, so the doctrine runs, a compact
with the prince, and he in turn with the subjects. According to this su-
perficial view, there is in contract only one unity of different wills; but
in fact there are two identical wills, both of which are persons, and wish
to remain possessors. Contract, besides, arises out of the spontaneous
choice of the persons. Marriage, indeed, has that point in common with
contract, but with the state it is different. An individual cannot enter or
leave the social condition at his option, since every one is by his very
nature a citizen of a state. The characteristic of man as rational is to live
in a state; if there is no state, reason claims that one should be founded.
A state, it is true, must grant permission either to enter or to leave it; but
this permission is not given in deference to the arbitrary choice of the
individual, nor is the state founded upon a contract which presupposes
this choice. It is false to say that it rests with the arbitrary will of all to
establish a state; rather is it absolutely necessary for every one to be in
a state. The great progress of the modern state is due to the fact that it
has and keeps an absolute end, and no man is now at liberty to make
private arrangements in connection with this end, as they did in the
middle ages.
76. Contract is formal when the two elements through which the
common will arises, the negative disposal of the thing and the positive
reception of it, are so divided, that one of the contracting parties makes
one side of the agreement, and the other, the other. This is gift. Contract
is real when each of the contractors performs both sides of the double
agreement, and is and remains an owner. This is exchange.
Addition.—Contract involves two agreements to two things; I both
give up and acquire a property. Real contract occurs, when each yields
The Philosophy of Right/79
up and acquires possession; in giving up he remains an owner. Formal
contract occurs when a person only gives up or acquires.
77. In real contract every one both keeps the same property as he
had when he undertook the contract, and also yields up his property.
Hence it is necessary to distinguish the property, which in contract re-
mains permanently mine, from the external objects which change hands.
The universal and self-identical element in exchange, that with regard to
which the objects to be exchanged are equal, is the value (§63).
Note.—By the very conception of contract a Iaesio enormis annuls
the agreement, since the contractor, in disposing of his goods, must re-
main in possession of a quantitative equivalent. An injury may fairly be
called enormous, if it exceeds half of the value; but it is infinite, when a
contract or any stipulation is entered into to dispose of an inalienable
good (§66). A stipulation is only one single part or side of the whole
contract, or a merely formal settlement, of which more hereafter. It con-
tains only the formal phase of contract, the consent of one party to
perform something, and the consent of the other party to accept the
performance. It must, therefore, be classed amongst the so-called one-
sided contracts. The division of contracts into one-sided and two-sided,
and many other divisions of the same kind in Roman law, are superficial
combinations, arising from some particular and external consideration,
as, for instance, the way in which they are made. They may also intro-
duce attributes which do not concern the nature of contract, such as
those which have meaning only in reference to the administration of
justice (actiones), and to the legal consequences of positive laws, or
such as may arise out of wholly external circumstances and injure the
conception of right.
78. The distinction between property and possession between the
substantive and the external side (§45), assumes in contract the form of
a distinction between the common will or agreement and the realization
of this will in performance. The agreement, taken by itself in its differ-
ence from performance, is something imagined or symbolic, appearing
in reality as a visible sign. (“Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sci-
ences”.) In stipulation it may be manifested by gesture or other sym-
bolic act, but usually in an express declaration through speech, which is
the most worthy vehicle of thought.
Note.—Stipulation, thus interpreted, is the form in which the con-
tent of a concluded contract is outwardly symbolized. But this symbol is
only the form. By this is not meant that the content is still merely subjec-
80/G. W. F. Hegel
tive, merely a desideratum, but that the conclusion of the actual ar-
rangement is made by the will.
Addition.—As in property we had the distinction between property
and possession, the substantive and th external, so in contract we have
the difference between tht common will as agreement and the particular
will as performance. It is in the nature of contract that both the common
and the particular wills should be manifested, because it is the relation
of will to will. In civilized communities agreement, manifested by a
sign, is separated from performance, although with ruder peoples they
may concur. There is in the forests of Ceylon a tribe, which in trading
puts down its property and waits patiently for the arrival of those who
will place their property over against it; the dumb declaration of the will
is not separated from performance.
79. As stipulation involves the will, it contains, from the standpoint
of right, the substance of contract. In contrast with this substantive con-
tract the possession, which remains till the contract is fully carried out,
has no reality outside of the agreement. I have given up a possession and
my private control over it, and it has already become the property of
another. I am legally bound to carry out the stipulation.
Note.—Mere promise is different from contract. What I promise to
do, give or perform, is future and a mere subjective qualification of my
will. I am at liberty to change my promise. But stipulation is already the
embodiment of my volition. I have disposed of my property; it has ceased
to be mine, and I recognize it as already belonging to another. The Ro-
man distinction between pactum and contractus is not sound.
Fichte once laid it down that the obligation to hold to the contract
began for me only when the other party began to do his share. Before
performance I am supposed to be doubtful whether the other had been
really in earnest. The obligation before performance is, therefore, said
to be moral and not legal. The trouble is that stipulation is not merely
external, but involves a common will, which has already done away
with mere intention and change of mind. The other party may of course
change his mind after the engagement, but has he any right to do so? For
plainly I may choose to do what is wrong, although the other person
begins to perform his side of the contract. Fichte’s view is worthless,
since it bases the legal side of contract upon the bad infinite, that is, an
infinite series, or the infinite divisibility of time, material and action.
The embodiment of the will in gesture or a definite form of words is its
complete intellectual embodiment, of which the performance is the merely
The Philosophy of Right/81
mechanical result.
It does not alter the case that positive law distinguishes between so-
called real contracts and consensual contracts, real contracts being com-
plete only when the actual performance (res, traditio rei) is added to
consent. Sometimes in these real contracts the surrender to me of the
object enables me to carry out my part of the engagement, and my obli-
gation to act refers to the object only in so far as I have received it into
my hands. This occurs in loan, interest, deposit, and sometimes in ex-
change also. These cases do not concern the relation of stipulation to
performance, but merely the manner of performance. It is also optional
in the case of contract to bargain that on one side the obligation shall not
arise until the other party fulfils his share of the engagement.
80. The classification or rational treatment of contracts is deduced
not from external circumstances, but from distinctions which are in-
volved in the very nature of contract. These distinctions are those be-
tween formal and real contract, between property and possession or
use, and between value and the specific thing. The subjoined classifica-
tion agrees in the main with the Kantian (“Metaphysical Principles of
the Theory of Right,” p. 120). It is surprising that the old method of
classification of contracts into real and consensual, named and unnamed,
has not long ago given way before something that is more reasonable.
A. Gift.
(1) Gift of an object or gift proper.
(2) Loan of an object—the gift of a portion of it or of a partial use
or enjoyment of it, the lender remaining owner; (mutuum and commo-
datum without interest). The object is specific, or it may be regarded as
universal, or it is, as in the case of money, actually universal.
(3) Gift of service, as for example the mere storage of a property
(depositum). The gift of an object on the special condition that the re-
ceiver shall be owner on the giver’s death, when the giver can no longer
be owner, is bequest, and does not come under the conception of con-
tract. It presupposes the civic community and positive legislation.
B. Exchange.
(1) Exchange as such.
(
a) Exchange of objects, i.e. of one specific thing for another of the
same kind.
(
b) Purchase or sale (emtio, venditio). The exchange of a specific
82/G. W. F. Hegel
object, for a general object, which has the phase of value but not of use,
namely money.
(2) Rent (locatio, conductio), relinquishment of the temporary use
of a property for rent or interest,
(
a) Renting of a specific thing, renting proper.
(
b) Renting of a universal thing, so that the lessor remains owner
only of the universal or the value. This is loan, mutuum and commoda-
tum with interest. Whether the object be a flat, furniture, house, a res
fungibilis or non fungibilis, this question gives rise, here also as in the
second kind of gift, to particular qualifications that are unimportant.
(3) Contract for wages (locatio operae)—relinquishment, limited
in time or otherwise, of my labour or services, in so far as as they are
disposable (§67).
Akin to this is the brief and other such contracts, in which the per-
formance depends upon character, confidence, or special talents. Here
the service cannot be measured by its money value, which is not called
wages, but an honorarium or fee.
C. Completion of a contract (cautio) through a security.
In contracts where I dispose of the use of a thing, as in rent, I am no
longer in possession of it, but am still the owner. In exchange, purchase,
or gift, I may have become owner, without being as yet in actual posses-
sion. Indeed, in every contract, except such as are directly on a cash
basis, this separation is to be found. Security or pledge is concerned
with an object which I give up, or an object which is to be mine. It either
keeps or puts me in actual possession of the value, although in neither
case am I in possession of the specific thing. The thing which I have
either given up, or expect to receive, is my property only as regards its
value; but as a specific thing it is the property of the holder of the pledge,
who owns also whatever surplus value the object may have. Pledge is
not itself a contract, but only a stipulation (§77), which completes con-
tract on the side of possession of property.—Mortgage and surety are
special forms of the pledge.
Addition.—In contract it was said that by means of an agreement a
property becomes mine, although I have not possession as yet and shall
have possession only by performing my part. If I am out-and-out owner
of the object, the intention of a pledge is to place me at once in posses-
sion of its value; thus already in the engagement the possession is guar-
anteed. Surety is a special kind of pledge, some one offering his promise
The Philosophy of Right/83
or credit as warrant for my performance. Here a person does, what in a
pledge is done by a thing.
81. When persons are viewed as direct and incomplete, their wills
are still particular, however identical they may be implicitly, and how-
ever much they may, in contract, be subordinated to the common will.
So long as they are direct and incomplete, it is a matter of accident
whether their particular wills accord with the general will, which has
existence only by means of them. When the particular will is actually
different from the universal, it is led by caprice, random insight and
desire, and is opposed to general right. This is wrong.
Note.—It is from the standpoint of logic a higher necessity which
brings about the transition to wrong. The two phases of the conception
of right are (a), intrinsic right or the general will, and (b) right as it
exists, or the particular will. It inheres in the abstract reality of the
conception that these two phases should be opposed and given indepen-
dence.—The particular, independent will is caprice and erratic choice,
which I, in exchange, have yielded up with regard to only one single
thing, but not altogether.
Addition.—In contract the two wills give rise to a common will.
This common will is only relatively universal, and thus still in opposi-
tion to the particular will. Exchange or covenant, it is true, implies the
right to demand performance. But the particular will may act in opposi-
tion to the general abstract right. Hence arises the negation, which was
already implicit in the general will. This negation is wrong. The general
procedure is this, to purify the will of its abstract simplicity, and thus to
summon out of the common will the particular will, which in turn takes
the field against the common will, the participants, in contract, still pre-
serve their particular wills. Contract is not, therefore, beyond arbitrary
caprice, and remains exposed to wrong.
Third Section: Wrong.
82. Contract establishes general right, whose inner or relative univer-
sality is merely a generality based on the caprice of the particular will.
In this external manifestation of right, right and its essential embodi-
ment in the particular will are directly or accidentally in accord. In wrong
this external manifestation becomes an empty appearance. This seem-
ing reality consists in the opposition of abstract right to the particular
will, involving a particular right. But this seeming reality is in truth a
mere nullity, since right by negating this negation of itself restores itself.
84/G. W. F. Hegel
By turning back to itself out of its negation right becomes actual and
valid, whereas at first it was only a contingent possibility.
Addition.—When intrinsic right or the general will is determined in
its nature by the particular will, it is in relation with a non-essential.
This is the relation of essence or reality to outward manifestation. Though
the manifestation is in one aspect adequate to the essence, it is in an-
other aspect inadequate; as a manifestation is contingency, essence is in
relation with the unessential. Now in wrong this manifestation has the
form of a seeming reality, which is to be interpreted as an outward real-
ity inadequate to the essence. It deprives essence of reality, and sets up
the empty abstraction as real. It is consequently untrue. It vanishes when
it tries to exist alone. By its departure the essence is in possession of
itself as its reality, and becomes master over mere semblance. It has
thus negated the negation of itself, and become strengthened in the pro-
cess. Wrong is this mere seeming reality, and, when wrong vanishes,
right receives an added fixity and value. What we call essence or reality
is the intrinsically universal will, as against which the particular will
reveals itself as untrue, and does away with itself. The general will had
in the first instance only an immediate being; but now it is something
actual, because it has returned out of its negation. Actuality is active
and finds itself in its opposite, while the implicit is to its negation pas-
sive.
83. Right, as particular and in its diverse shapes, is opposed to its
own intrinsic universality and simplicity, and then has the form of a
mere semblance. It is a mere seeming reality partly of itself and directly;
partly is it so by means of the subject; partly is it established as a pure
nullity. There arise therefore (a) unpremeditated or civic wrong, (b) fraud,
and (c) crime.
Addition.—Wrong is the mere outer appearance of essence, giving
itself forth as independent. If this semblance has a merely implicit and
not an explicit existence, that is to say, if the wrong is in my eyes a right,
the wrong is unpremeditated. The mere semblance is such for right but
not for me. The second form of wrong is fraud. Here the wrong is not
such for general right, but by it I delude another person; for me the right
is a mere semblance. In the first case wrong was for right only a sem-
blance or seeming wrong; in the second case right is for me, the wrong-
doer, only a semblance or pretence. The third kind of wrong is crime.
This is both of itself and also for me a wrong. I in this case desire the
wrong, and make no use of the pretence of right. The other party, against
The Philosophy of Right/85
whom the crime is done, is quite well aware that this unqualified wrong
is not a right. The distinction between fraud and crime lies in this, that a
fraudulent act is not yet recognized as a wrong, but in crime the wrong
is openly seen.
A.
Unpremeditated Wrong.
84. Since the will is in itself universal, possession (§54) and contract, in
themselves and in their different kinds, and also all the various manifes-
tations of my will imply a reference to other rights at law. Since these
rights are so external and varied, several different persons may have a
right to one and the same object, each basing his claim to ownership on
his right at law. Thus arise collisions.
85. A collision, in which the object is claimed on legal grounds,
occurs in the region of civil law, and recognizes the law as the universal
arbiter. The thing is admitted to belong to him who has the right to it.
The legal contest merely finds whether a thing is mine or another’s. This
is a purely negative judgment, in which the predicate “mine” negates
only the particular.
86. In law-suits the recognition of right is bound up with some pri-
vate interest or view opposed to right. Against this mere appearance,
intrinsic right, which is in fact implied in it (§85), comes on the scene as
a reality purposed and demanded. This right, however, is demanded
only abstractly, because the will as particular is not freed from direct
contact with its private interest, and does not aim at the universal. Still,
the law is here a recognized reality, as against which the contending
parties must renounce their private views and interests.
Addition.—That which is intrinsically right has a definite ground,
and I defend my wrong, which I maintain to be right, also on some
ground. It is the nature of the finite and particular to make room for
accidents. Collisions must occur, since we are at the stage of the finite.
The first form of wrong negates only the particular will; but pays re-
spect to the general right; it is thus the slightest of all forms of wrong.
When I say that a rose is not red, I still admit that the object has colour.
I thus do not deny the species, colour, but only the particular colour,
red. It is the same here with right. Everybody wills the right, and for him
the right only shall take place; his wrong consists in his holding that
what he wills is right.
86/G. W. F. Hegel
B.
Fraud.
87. Since intrinsic right, in distinction from particular and concrete right,
is demanded, it is essential; but just because it is only demanded and in
that light merely subjective, it is non- essential, and becomes simply an
appearance. When the universal is degraded from the particular will to
the merely apparent will, when, e.g., contract is regarded as only an
external association of the will, we have fraud.
Addition.—In fraud universal right is abused, but the particular will
is respected. The person on whom the fraud is committed, is imposed
upon and made to believe that he gets his rights. The right, which is
demanded, however, is merely subjective and unreal, and in that con-
sists the fraud.
88. I acquire property by contract for the sake of the special quali-
ties of the thing. But I acquire it, also, because of its inner universality
which consists partly in its value, partly in its being the property of
another. Now it is at the option of the other party to produce a false
appearance in the case of contract. There may be the free consent of
both parties to the exchange of the mere given object in its bare particu-
larity, and so far the transaction is not unjust. Yet the object may fail to
have any intrinsic universality. (The infinite judgment in its positive
expression or identical meaning. See “Encyclopaedia of the philosophi-
cal Sciences.”)
89. To guard against the acceptance of a thing in its bare particular-
ity, and in order to be fortified against an arbitrary will, there is at this
juncture only a demand that the objective or universal side of the thing
should be recognizable, that the objective should be made good as right,
and that the arbitrary will, offending against right, should be removed
and superseded.
Addition.—No penalty is attached to mere unpremeditated or unin-
tentional wrong, since in it I have willed nothing against right. But to
fraud penalties are due, since right is violated.
C.
Violence and Crime.
90. Since in property my will is embodied in an external thing, it follows
that just as far as my will is reflected in that object, I can be attacked in
it and placed under external compulsion. Hence my will may be en-
forced. Violence is done to it, when force is employed in order to obtain
some possession or object of desire.
Addition.—In crime, which is wrong in its proper sense, neither
The Philosophy of Right/87
right in general nor my personal right is respected. Both the objective
and the subjective aspects of right are set at defiance by crime.
91. As a living creature a man may be compelled to do a thing; his
physical and other external powers may be brought under the force of
another. But the free will cannot be absolutely compelled (§5), but only
in so far as it does not withdraw (§7) out of the external, to which it is
held fast, or out of the imaginative reproduction of the external. It can
only be compelled when it allows itself to be compelled.
92. Since it is only in so far as the will has visible existence that it is
the idea and so really free, and its realized existence is the embodiment
of freedom, force or violence destroys itself forthwith in its very con-
ception. It is a manifestation of will which cancels and supersedes a
manifestation or visible expression of will. Force or violence, therefore,
is, according to this abstract treatment of it, devoid of right.
93. Since it in its very conception destroys itself, its principle is that
it must be cancelled by violence. Hence it is not only right but necessary
that a second exercise of force should annul and supersede the first.
Note.—Violation of a contract through failure to carry out the agree-
ment, or violation of the legal duties toward the family or the state,
through action or neglect, is the first violence. It is an exercise of force,
if I retain another’s property, or neglect to do some duty. Force exer-
cised by a teacher upon a pupil, or by any one against incivility and
rudeness, seems to be the first act of violence, not caused by any previ-
ous display of force. But the merely natural will is of itself a violence to
the universal idea of freedom; and against the inroads of the uncivilized
will the idea of freedom ought to be protected and made good. Either
there must be assumed within the family or state a moral and social
atmosphere, against which a crude naturalness is an act of violence, or
else there is at first everywhere present a natural condition or state of
violence, over which the idea has the right of mastery.
Addition.—In the state there can be heroes no more. They appear
only in uncivilized communities. The aim of the hero is right, necessary
and in keeping with the state; but he carried it out, as if it was his own
private affair. The heroes, who founded states, and introduced marriage
and husbandry, did not in this realize a recognized right. These acts
issue merely from their particular wills. Yet as they imply the higher
right of the idea against a merely natural state of things, their violence is
lawful. Little can be effected against the force of nature merely by good-
ness.
88/G. W. F. Hegel
94. Abstract right is a right to use force. A wrong done to this right
is a force exercised against my liberty realized in an external thing. The
preservation of my realized freedom against force must be itself an ex-
ternal act, and therefore a second force, which removes the first and
takes its place.
Note.—To define strict abstract right as the right to use compulsion
is to apprehend it as a result, which enters first of all by the roundabout
way of wrong.
Addition.—Here may well be observed the difference between right
and morality. In morality or the sphere in which I turn back into myself
there are also two sides, for in it goodness is for me an end, and in
accordance with this idea I must direct my life. Goodness is embodied in
my resolution, and I realize it in myself. Yet this resolution is wholly
internal, and, as a consequence, is not subject to coercion. The civil
laws do not seek to stretch their control over the disposition. In morality
I am independent, and the application of external force has no meaning.
95. A first violence, exercised by a free man, and doing injury to the
concrete embodiment of freedom, namelv right as right, is crime. Crime
is the negative-infinite judgment in its complete sense. It negates not
only the particular object of my will, but also the universal or infinite,
which is involved in the predicate ‘mine,’ the very capacity for possess-
ing rights; nor does it even utilize my opinion, as in fraud (§88). Here
we are in the realm of criminal law.
Note.—The right, to injure which constitutes crime, has indeed so
far only the features we have pointed out; and crime has a meaning
determined in each case by these special features. But the substance of
these forms of right is the universal which remains the same in all its
subsequent developments and modifications. So also crime remains the
same in accordance with its conception. Hence the phase, noticed in the
next paragraph, refers to particular and definite contents, as, e.g., per-
jury, treason, counterfeiting, forgery, etc.
96. The actualized will, which alone is subject to injury, has, of
course, a concrete existence, and varies, therefore, both in quality and in
quantity. This variation gives rise to differences in the objective side of
crime, which may injure only one side or phase of the will, or again, its
whole concrete character and range, as in murder, slavery, and religious
persecution.
Note.—The Stoic theory that there is but one virtue and one vice,
the Draconian statutes, which punished every crime with death, and the
The Philosophy of Right/89
barbarity of the formal code of honour, which found in every injury an
unpardonable insult, all in common cling to the abstract view of the free
will and personality, and refuse to take them in that concrete and defi-
nite realization which they must have, if they are to realize the idea.—
Robbery and theft differ in quality, because in robbery personal vio-
lence is done to me as an actually present consciousness and as this self-
determined subject.—Many qualitative phases of crime, as, for instance,
an act done against public safety, are determined by definite social rela-
tions, and may be deduced from the conception, although they are often
made in a roundabout way to depend upon consequences. A crime against
public peace is of itself in its own direct composition heavier or lighter
according to its extent and quality. The subjective moral quality refer-
ring to the higher distinction, as to how far the act is done consciously,
will be dealt with later.
Addition.—Thought itself cannot determine how every single crime
is to be punished. In many cases the positive features of the act must be
considered. By the progress of civilization the estimate of crime be-
comes milder, to-day the criminal being punished less severely than he
was a hundred years ago. It is not exactly that the crime or the punish-
ment has become different but the relation between the two.
97. An injury done to right as right is a positive external fact; yet it
is a nullity. This nullity is exposed in the actual negation of the injury
and in the realization of right. Right necessarily brings itself to pass by
cancelling the injury and assuming its place.
Addition.—By crime something is altered, and exists as so altered.
But this existence is the opposite of itself, and so far null. Nullity con-
sists in the usurpation of the place of right. But right, as absolute, is
precisely what refuses to be set aside. Hence it is the manifestation of
the crime which is intrinsically null, and this nullity is the essential re-
sult of all crime. But what is null must manifest itself as such, and make
itself known as that which violates itself. The criminal act is not the
primary and positive, to which punishment comes as the negative. It is
the negative, and punishment is only the negation of a negation. Actual
right destroys and replaces injury, thus showing its validity and verify-
ing itself as a necessary factor in reality.
98. Injury, confined merely to external reality or possession of some
kind, is detriment or damage to property or wealth. The cancellation of
the injury or damage takes, when possible, the form of civic satisfaction
or compensation.
90/G. W. F. Hegel
Note.—When damage consists in the destruction of something which
cannot be restored, compensation must take the form not of a particular
object but of the universal quality, namely, value.
99. The injury which befalls the intrinsic or general will, the will,
that is, of the injurer, the injured and all others, has just as little positive
existence in this general will as in the bare external result. The general
will, i.e. right or law, is self-complete, has no external existence at all,
and is inviolable. Injury is merely negative also for the particular wills
of the injured and others. It exists positively, on the other hand, only as
the particular will of the criminal, and to injure this will in its concrete
existence is to supersede the crime, which would otherwise be positively
established, and to restore right.
Note.—The theory of punishment is one of the matters, which in the
modern positive science of right has fared worst. The attempt is made to
base this theory upon the understanding, and not, as should be done,
upon the conception. If crime and its removal, or, more definitely, pun-
ishment, are regarded merely as evil, it might indeed be thought unrea-
sonable to will a second evil merely because one already existed. (Klein,
“Grunds. des peinlichen Rechts,” §9 fol.) In the different theories of
punishment, that it is preventive, deterrent, reformatory, etc., this super-
ficial notion is taken to be fundamental. In the same superficial way the
result of punishment is set down as a good. But here we are not dealing
with an evil, and this or that good, but with wrong and justice. In these
superficial theories the consideration of justice is set aside, and the moral
aspect, the subjective side of crime, is made the essential. Also with the
moral view are mingled trivial psychological notions about temptation,
and the strength of sensual impulses opposing reason, about psycho-
logical compulsion also, and the influences affecting the imagination; it
being forgotten that the subjective may freely abase itself to something
contingent and unreal. The treatment of punishment in its character as a
phenomenon, of its relation to the particular consciousness, of the effect
of threats upon the imagination, and of the possibility of reform is of
great importance in its proper place, when the method of punishment is
to be decided on. But such treatment must assume that punishment is
absolutely just. Hence everything turns on the point that in crime it is
not the production of evil but the injury of right as right, which must be
set aside and overcome. We must ask what that is in crime, whose exist-
ence has to be removed. That is the only evil to be set aside, and the
essential thing is to determine wherein that evil lies. So long as concep-
The Philosophy of Right/91
tions are not clear on this point, confusion must reign in the theory of
punishment.
Addition.—Feuerbach, in his theory of punishment, considers pun-
ishment as a menace, and thinks that if any one disregards the threat and
commits a crime, the punishment must follow, since it was already known
to the criminal. But is it right to make threats? A threat assumes that a
man is not free, and will compel him by vividly presenting a possible
evil. Right and justice, however, must have their seat in freedom and in
the will, and not in the restriction implied in menace. In this view of
punishment it is much the same as when one raises a cane against a dog;
a man is not treated in accordance with his dignity and honour, but as a
dog. A menace may incite a man to rebellion in order that he may dem-
onstrate his freedom, and therefore sets justice wholly aside. Psycho-
logical compulsion may refer to distinctions of quality or quantity in
crime, but not to the very nature of crime. Books of law, written in
accordance with the principle that punishment is a threat, lack their
proper basis.
100. The injury which the criminal experiences is inherently just
because it expresses his own inherent will, is a visible proof of his free-
dom and is his right. But more than that, the injury is a right of the
criminal himself, and is implied in his realized will or act. In his act, the
act of a rational being, is involved a universal element, which by the act
is set up as a law. This law he has recognized in his act, and has con-
sented to be placed under it as under his right.
Note.—Beccaria, as is well known, has denied to the state the right
of exacting the death penalty, on the ground that the social contract
cannot be supposed to contain the consent of the individual to his own
death; rather, as he thought, must the opposite be assumed. To this it
must be replied that the state is not a contract (§75), nor, moreover, are
the protection and security of the life and property of individuals in their
capacity as separate persons, the unconditioned object of the state’s
existence. On the contrary, the state is the higher existence, which lays
claim to the life and property of the individual, and demands the sacri-
fice of them.
Not only has the conception of crime, the reasonable essence of it,
to be upheld by the state, with or without the consent of the individual,
but rationality on its formal side, the side of the individual will, is con-
tained in the act of the criminal. The criminal is honoured as reasonable,
because the punishment is regarded as containing his own right. The
92/G. W. F. Hegel
honour would not be shared by him, if the conception and measure of
his punishment were not deduced from his very act. Just as little is he
honoured when he is regarded as a hurtful animal, which must be made
harmless, or as one who must be terrified or reformed.—Moreover,
punishment is not the only embodiment of justice in the state, nor is the
state merely the condition or possibility of justice.
Addition.—The desire of Beccaria that men should consent to their
own punishment is reasonable, but the criminal has already yielded con-
sent through his act. It is both in the nature of crime and in the criminal’s
own will, that the injury caused by him should be superseded. In spite of
this Beccaria’s efforts to abolish capital punishment have had good re-
sults. Although neither Joseph II nor the French have ever been able to
obtain complete abolition of the death- penalty, still we have begun to
see what crimes deserve death and what do not. Capital punishment has
thus become less frequent, as indeed should be the case with the extreme
penalty of the law.
101. The doing away with crime is retribution, in so far as retribu-
tion is in its conception injury of an injury, implying that as crime has a
definite qualitative and quantitative context, its negation should be simi-
larly definite. This identity, involved in the very nature of the case, is not
literal equality, but equality in the inherent nature of the injury, namely,
its value.
Note.—If we were to deduce our definition of punishment, as sci-
ence usually does, from accepted opinions as to the psychological expe-
riences of consciousness, we could prove that in nations and individuals
there is and has been a universal feeling that crime deserves punish-
ment, and that it should be done to the criminal according to his act. Yet
the sciences, which have drawn their decisions from universal opinion,
the very next moment adopt conclusions at variance with their so-called
universal facts of consciousness.
The category of equality has introduced much difficulty into the
general notion of retribution. The view that it is just to mete out punish-
ment in proportion to the special context of the crime, of course arises
later than the essential relation of punishment to crime. Although, in
order to make this essential relation specific, we must look about for
other principles than merely the general principle of punishment, yet
this general principle remains as it is. And more, the conception itself
must contain the basis for special applications of it. The conception,
made thus specific, implies of necessity the judgment that crime, as the
The Philosophy of Right/93
product of a negative will, carries with it its own negation or punish-
ment. This inner identity is reproduced by the understanding in the sphere
of actual reality as equality. The quantitative and qualitative context of
crime and its removal belongs to the external region, in which no abso-
lute rule can be laid down (compare §49). In the region of the finite this
rule of equality is only a demand which, as it is important to note, the
understanding must more and more hold in check. However it goes on
ad infinitum, and permits only of a continual approximation.
If we fail to observe the nature of the finite, and cling to absolute
equality in matters of detail, there arises first of all the insuperable dif-
ficulty of fixing the kind of punishment. To do this satisfactorily psy-
chology would have to reckon with the magnitude of the sensual mo-
tives, and also with whatever accompanies them as, e.g., the greater
strength of the evil will, or the weakness of the will, or its limited free-
dom. But that is not the sole difficulty. To adhere obstinately to the
equalization of punishment and crime in every case would reduce retri-
bution to an absurdity. It would be necessary to institute a theft in return
for theft, robbery for robbery, and to demand an eye for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth, although the criminal, as we can easily fancy, might
have only one eye or be toothless. For these absurdities, however, the
conception is not responsible. They are due to the attempt to equate
crime and punishment throughout their minute details. Value, as the
inner identity of things specifically different, has already been made use
of in connection with contract, and occurs again in the civil prosecution
of crime (§95). By it the imagination is transferred from the direct at-
tributes of the object to its universal nature. Since the essential charac-
ter of crime lies in its infinitude, i.e., in the breach of its own right, mere
external details vanish. Equality becomes only a general rule for deter-
mining the essential, namely, a man’s real desert, not for deciding the
special external penalty. Only when we limit ourselves to equality in the
external details are theft and robbery unequal to fine and imprisonment.
But from the standpoint of their value and their general capacity to be
injuries, they can be equated. To approach as nearly as possible to this
equality in value is, as has been remarked, the task of the understanding.
If we ignore the relation of crime to its cancellation, and neglect the idea
of value, and the possibility of comparing these two in terms of their
value, we can see in punishment nothing more than the arbitrary attach-
ment of an evil to an act not permitted (Klein, “Grunds, des peinlichen
Rechts,” §9).
94/G. W. F. Hegel
Addition.—Retribution is the inner connection and identity of two
things which in outward appearance and in external reality are differ-
ent. Requital seems to be something foreign, and not of right to belong
to the criminal. But punishment is only the manifestation of crime, the
other half which is necessarily presupposed in the first. Retribution looks
like something immoral, like revenge, and may therefore seem to be
something personal. But it is the conception, not the personal element,
which carries out retribution. Revenge is mine, says God in the Bible,
and, when some find in the word re-tribution the idea of a special plea-
sure for the subjective will, it must be replied that it signifies only the
turning back of crime against itself. The Eumenides sleep, but crime
wakes them. So it is the criminal’s own deed which judges itself. Al-
though in requital we cannot venture upon equality of details, the case is
different with murder, to which death is necessarily due. Life is the total
context of one’s existence, and cannot be measured by value. Its punish-
ment, therefore, cannot be measured by value, but must consist in the
taking of another life.
102. In the sphere of direct right the suppression of crime takes, in
the first instance, the form of revenge. This in its content is just, so far
as it is retribution; but in its form it is the act of a subjective will, which
may put into any injury an infinite or unpardonable wrong. Hence its
justice is a matter of accident, and for others means only private satis-
faction. As revenge is only the positive act of a particular will, it is a
new injury. Through this contradiction it becomes an infinite process,
the insult being inherited without end from generation to generation.
Note.—Wherever crime is punished not as crimina pub-lica but as
privata, it still has attached to it a remnant of revenge. This is the state
of affairs with the Jews, with the Romans in theft and robbery, and with
the English in some special instances. Differing from private revenge is
the exercise of revenge by heroes, adventurous knights, and others, all
of whom appear when the state is in its infancy.
Addition.—In that condition of society where there are no judges
and no laws, punishment always takes the form of revenge. This is de-
fective, as it is the act of a subjective will, and has an inadequate con-
tent. Judges are persons, it is true, but they will the universal meaning of
the law, and insert into punishment nothing which is not found in the
nature of the act. But the injured person, on the other hand, may view
the wrong act not in its necessary limits of quality and quantity, but
simply as a wrong, and may in requital do what would lead to a new
The Philosophy of Right/95
wrong. Amongst uncivilized peoples revenge is undying, as with the
Arabs, amongst whom it can be suppressed only by a superior force or
by impossibility. In several of our present regulations a trace of revenge
survives, as when it is at the option of individuals to bring an injury to
trial at court.
103. That the contradiction involved in this way of abolishing crime,
and the contradictions found in other cases of wrong (§§86, 89), should
be solved, is a demand made by a justice which is freed at once from all
subjective interests and limits and from the arbitrariness of power. Jus-
tice, therefore, does not revenge but punishes. Here we have in the first
instance the demand of a will, which, while particular and subjective,
wills the universal as such. But the conception of morality is not simply
demanded, but is in the process created.
Transition from Right to Morality.
104. Crime and revenging justice represent the visible outer form of the
development of the will as occurring, first of all, in the distinction be-
tween the universal will and the individual will, which exists indepen-
dently in opposition to the universal. Next, by rising above the opposi-
tion, the universal will is turned back into itself and has become an
independent reality. Thus right, when maintained against the indepen-
dent private will, has validity, being realized through its own necessity.
This result is also arrived at by the development of the conception
of will on the side of its inner character. The actualization of the will
according to its conception proceeds in this way. Its first form is the
abstract and simple phase it assumes in abstract right. This first form
must be in the next place set aside and passed beyond (§21) in order that
the will may become involved in the opposition of the abstract universal
will and the independent particular will. Then by the removal of this
opposition, i.e., by the negation of a negation, it becomes an actualized
will, free not only abstractly and potentially, but actually, as is neces-
sary in a negativity which is able to refer itself to itself. Whereas in
abstract right the will was itself mere personality, it now has its person-
ality as its object. The subjectivity which is its own object is infinite,
and freedom in its infinite subjectivity constitutes the principle of mo-
rality.
Note.—Let us for the sake of a closer inspection turn back to the
elements, through which the conception of freedom progresses from the
first abstract phase of the will to that phase, in which it refers itself to
96/G. W. F. Hegel
itself, the phase of the self-determining subject. Thus property being an
external object, we have in it the phase of the abstract “mine;” in ex-
change we have the common “mine,” the “mine” brought into existence
by two wills; in wrong the will which belongs to the province of right,
the will in its abstract, direct, and intrinsic existence, is made contingent
by means of the particular will which is itself contingent. In morality
this whole phase of will is so far transcended that its contingency is
turned back into itself and made one with itself, and thus becomes a
self-referring, infinite contingency of the will, or in a word subjectivity.
Addition.—To truth it belongs that the conception should exist, and
that its reality should correspond to the conception. In right the will
exists in an external object. But as it must have its existence in itself, in
an internal thing, it must become its own object; it must pass into sub-
jectivity and have itself over against itself. This relation to itself is affir-
mative, a relation brought about by the will only through the transcen-
dence of its direct existence. When its first- hand existence is transcended
in crime, the way is open, through punishment, the negation of a nega-
tion, to affirmation, that is, to morality.
Second Part: Morality.
105. The moral standpoint is the standpoint of the will, not in its ab-
stract or implicit existence, but in its existence for itself, an existence
which is infinite (§104). This turning back of the will upon itself, or its
actual self-identity, with its associated phases stands in contrast to its
abstract implicit existence, and converts person into subject.
106. Subjectivity is the conception made definite, differing there-
fore from the abstract, general will. Further, the will of the subject,
though it still retains traces of self-involved simplicity, is the will of an
individual, who is an object for himself. Hence subjectivity is the real-
ization of the conception.—This gives freedom a higher ground. Now at
last there appears in the idea the side of its real existence, the subjectiv-
ity of the will. It is only in the will as subjective that freedom, or the
potentially existing will, can be actualized.
Note.—Morality, the second sphere, gives an outline of the real side
of the conception of freedom. Observe the process through which mo-
rality passes. As the will has now withdrawn into itself, it appears at the
outset as existing independently, having merely a potential identity with
the intrinsic or universal will. Then this abstract self-dependence is su-
perseded; and, finally, the will is made really and consciously identical
The Philosophy of Right/97
with the intrinsic or universal will. Now in this movement, as I have
said, is illustrated the conception of freedom. Freedom or subjectivity is
at first abstract and distinct from the conception of it. Then by means of
this movement the soil of freedom is so worked up, that for the concep-
tion, and necessarily also for the idea, it receives its true realization.
The process ends, therefore, when the subjective will has become an
objective and truly concrete will.
Addition.—In right, taken strictly, nothing depends upon my pur-
pose or intention. The question of the self-determination, impulse, or
purpose of the will arises for the first time in morality. Since a man is to
be judged according to the direction he has given himself, he is in this
act free, let the external features of the act be what they may. As no one
can successfully assail a man’s inner conviction, and no force can reach
it, the moral will is inaccessible. A man’s worth is estimated by his inner
act. Hence the moral standpoint implies the realization of freedom.
107. As self-determination of will is at the same time a factor of the
will’s conception, subjectivity is not merely the outward reality of will,
but its inner being (§104). This free and independent will, having now
become the will of a subject, and assuming in the first instance the form
of the conception, has itself a visible realization; otherwise it could not
attain to the idea. The moral standpoint is in its realized form the right
of the subjective will. In accordance with this right the will recognizes
and is a thing, only in so far as the thing is the will’s own, and the will in
it is itself and subjective.
Note.—The process of the moral standpoint (Note to preceding para-
graph) also appears as the development of the right of the subjective
will, or of the way in which the subjective will is realized. Thus the will
accounts what in its object it recognizes to be its own as its true concep-
tion, its objective or universal reality.
Addition.—Subjectivity of will, as a complete phase, is in its turn a
whole which, by its very nature, must also have objectivity. Freedom
can at first realize itself only in the subject, as it is the true material for
this realization. But this concrete manifestation of will, which we have
called subjectivity, is different from absolute will. From this new one-
sidedness of subjectivity must the will free itself, in order that it may
become absolute will. In morality the interest peculiar to man is in ques-
tion, and the high value of this interest consists in man’s knowing him-
self to be absolute, and determining himself. Uncivilized man is con-
trolled by the forces and occurrences of nature. Children have no moral
98/G. W. F. Hegel
will, but are guided by their parents. Civilized man is determined from
within, and wills that he shall be in all he does.
108. The subjective will, in so far as it is directly its own object and
distinct from the general will (§106, note), is abstract, limited, and for-
mal. Subjectivity, however, is not formal merely, but, since it is the
infinite self-direction of the will, is the will itself taken formally. Since
this formal character, as it appears first of all in the particular will, is
not as yet identical with the conception of will, the moral standpoint is
the standpoint of relation, of obligation or requirement.—Since, too,
subjectivity involves difference, that is to say, opposition to objectivity
as to a mere external existence, there arises here also the standpoint of
consciousness (§8), the standpoint of difference in general, of the finite
and phenomenal phase of the will.
Note.—The moral is not at once opposed to the immoral, just as
right is not directly opposed to wrong. The general standpoint of both
the moral and the immoral depends upon the subjectivity of the will.
Addition.—In morality self-determination is to be construed as a
restless activity, which cannot be satisfied with anything that is. Only in
the region of established ethical principles is the will identical with the
conception of it, and has only this conception for its content. In morality
the will is as yet related to what is potential. This is the standpoint of
difference, and the process of this standpoint is the identification of the
subjective will with the conception of will. The imperative or ought,
which, therefore, still is in morality, is fulfilled only in the ethical sphere.
This sphere, to which the subjective will is related, has a twofold nature.
It is the substance of the conception, and also external reality. If the
good were established in the subjective will, it would not yet be realized.
109. The formal will, by its own determining character, contains at
the outset the opposition of subjectivity and objectivity, and the appro-
priate activity (§8). Of this will we have these further phases. Concrete
realization and determinate character are in the conception identical.
The conception of the subjective will is first to make these two phases
separate and independent, and then to establish them as identical. Deter-
minate character in the self-determined will (
a) is brought about in itself
by itself, the opposition which it creates within itself being a self- be-
stowed content. This is the first negation, whose formal limit consists in
its being fixed as merely subjective. (
b) Since the will returns into itself
and is infinite, this limit exists for it, and it wills to transcend the limita-
tion. Hence it strives to convert its content out of subjectivity into objec-
The Philosophy of Right/99
tivity, i.e., some kind of directly given reality, (
g) The simple identity of
the will with itself in this opposition is the content, which maintains
itself amid these oppositions, and is indifferent to formal distinctions.
This content is the purpose or end.
110. As at the moral standpoint, freedom or self-identity of will is
for the will (§105), the simple identity of the content or end receives a
further characteristic peculiar to itself.
(a) This content becomes mine in such a way that it in its identity is
not only my inner end, but also, so far as it is externally realized, con-
tains for me my subjectivity.
Addition.—The content of the subjective or moral will has a special
character. Although it has attained the form of objectivity, it is yet al-
ways to contain my subjectivity. An act shall be counted mine only so
far as it is on its inner side issued by me, and was my own proposition
and intention. I do not recognize as mine anything in the outward act
except what lay in my subjective will, and in the outer act I desire to see
my subjective consciousness repeated.
111. (b) The content, though it contains something particular, from
whatever source it comes, is yet the content of a self-referring will,
which is also self-identical and universal. Thus it has these two features
(
a) It aims to be in itself adequate to the universal will, or to have the
objectivity of the conception; (
b) yet, since the subjective will exists for
itself, and is therefore independent and formal (§108), its aim is only an
ought and is possibly not adequate to the conception.
112. (c) Though I preserve my subjectivity in accomplishing my
ends (§110), yet in the objectification of these ends I pass beyond the
simple and elementary subjectivity which is merely my own. This new
external subjectivity, which is identical with me, is the will of others
(§73). The sphere for the existence of the will is subjectivity (§106), and
the will of others is the existence, which, though other than I, I yet give
to my purpose. Hence the accomplishment of my purpose contains the
identity of my will and that of others, and has to the will of others a
relation which is positive.
Note.—The objectivity of the realized end has three senses, or rather
contains in union the three following phases, (
a) It is external direct
reality (§109). (
b) It is adequate to the conception (§112). (g) It is uni-
versal subjectivity. The subjectivity which preserves itself in this objec-
tivity implies (a) that the objective end shall be my own, so that in it I
preserve myself as a particular individual (§110). The two phases (
b)
100/G. W. F. Hegel
and (
g) of subjectivity concur with the phases (b) and (g) of objectivity.
At the moral standpoint these various phases are distinguished or joined
merely in a contradiction. This is the superficial and finite nature of the
moral sphere (§108). The development of the standpoint consists in the
development of these contradictions and their solution, an achievement
which at the present point of view is incomplete or merely relative.
Addition.—It was said that formal right contained only prohibitions,
and that from the strict standpoint of legal right an act had only a nega-
tive reference to the will of others. In morals, on the contrary, the rela-
tion of my will to that of others is positive; that, which the subjective
will realizes, contains the universal will. In this is present the produc-
tion or alteration of some visible reality, and this has a bearing upon the
will of others. The conception of morality is the internal relation of the
will to itself. But there is here more than one will, since the objectifica-
tion of the will implies the transcendence of the onesidedness of the
separate will, and the substitution of two wills having a positive relation
one to the other. In right my will is realized in property, and there is no
room for any reference of the will of others to my will. But morality
treats of the well-being of others also. At this point this positive relation
to others first makes its appearance.
113. The expression of the subjective or moral will is action. Of
action it may be said that (
a) I know its external fulfillment to be mine,
(
b) it is essentially related to the conception in its phase as the ought or
imperative, and (
g) it is essentially connected with the will of others.
Note.—Firstly, the expression of the moral will is action. The em-
bodiment achieved by the will in formal right is a mere object. This
realization is direct, and has in the first instance no actual express refer-
ence to the conception. Not having as yet come into conflict with the
subjective will, the conception is not yet distinguished from it, and has
no positive relation to the will of others. The commands of right are,
hence, fundamentally prohibitions (§38). In contract and wrong, indeed,
there begins to be seen a relation to the will of others, but the agreement,
found at this point, is based upon arbitrary choice, while the essential
reference to the will of others is in right merely the negative proposal to
keep my property or the worth of it, and to let others keep theirs. Crime
does in a way issue from the subjective will. But the content of a crime
is fixed by written instructions and is not directly imputable to me. Hence
as the legal act contains only some elements of a distinctively moral act,
the two kinds of action are different.
The Philosophy of Right/101
114. The right of the moral will has three factors:
(a) The abstract or formal right. The act, as directly realized, is to
be in its essential content mine, and embody the purpose of the subjec-
tive will.
(b) The specific side of an act or its inner content, (
a) This is inten-
tion, which is for me, whose general character is fixed, the value and
inner substance of the act, (
b) and well-being, or the content taken as the
particular end of my particular, subjective reality.
(c) The good, or the content taken as universal and exalted to uni-
versality and absolute objectivity. This is the absolute end of the will.
As this is the sphere of reflection, we have the opposition of the univer-
sality, which is subjective, and hence involves in one aspect evil, and in
another conscience.
Addition.—An act, to be moral, must in the first instance accord
with my purpose, since the right of the moral will is to recognize as its
realization nothing which is not found internally in the purpose. Pur-
pose concerns the formal principle that the externalized will must also
be internal to me. In the next place we ask after the intention, that is, the
value of the act relatively to me. The third factor is not merely the rela-
tive, but the universal value of the act, the good. In the first phase of an
act there is a breach between purpose and realization; in the second
between what is given externally as universal will, and the particular
internal character, which I give it; the third and last phase is the claim of
my intention to be the universal content. The good is the intention ex-
alted to the conception of the will.
First Section: Purpose and Responsibility.
115. In the direct or immediate act the subjective will is finite, since it
has to do with both an external object and its varied surroundings, all
presupposed. An accomplished act makes a change in this ready-to-
hand material, and the will is responsible, in so far as the changed ma-
terial can be said to be mine.
Note.—An event or resultant condition is a concrete external real-
ity, having an indefinite number of circumstances associated with it.
Every particular element, shown to be in any sense a condition, ground
or cause of such an event, and, therefore, to have contributed its por-
tion, may be regarded as responsible for it, or at least as sharing in the
responsibility. Hence in the case of such a richly varied event as the
French Revolution, the formal understanding has to select from an un-
102/G. W. F. Hegel
told multitude of circumstances that one to which it will attribute re-
sponsibility.
Addition.—What is contained in my purpose can be laid at my door,
and this is one of the main considerations in the case of crime. But in
simple responsibility there is round only the quite external judgment as
to whether I nave or have not done this thing. Thus merely to be respon-
sible does not mean that the whole thing is to be imputed to me.
116. It is not my deed, if things, which I own, cause injury to others
through some of their many external connections; this may happen even
with my body as a mechanical or living object. Yet I am not wholly free
from responsibility in such a case, since these things are still mine, al-
though by their very nature they are often only imperfectly subject to
my attention and control.
117. When the self-directing will proposes to act upon a given ma-
terial, it has a representation of the circumstances. Since the material is
supplied, the will is finite, and the results of the act are for it accidental.
Hence they may contain something very different from the representa-
tion. But the right of the will in acting is to recognize as its own deed
only those results which were consciously in its end and were purposed.
That responsibility shall extend to the will only so far as the results were
known, is the right of knowledge.
Addition.—The will has before it an outer reality, upon which it
operates. But to be able to do this, it must have a representation of this
reality. True responsibility is mine only in so far as the outer reality was
within my consciousness. The will, because this external matter is sup-
plied to it, is finite; or rather because it is finite, the matter is supplied.
When I think and will rationally, I am not at this standpoint of finitude,
nor is the object I act upon something opposed to me. The finite always
has limit and boundary. There stands opposed to me that which is other
than I, something accidental and externally necessary; it may or may
not fall into agreement with me. But I am only what relates to my free-
dom; and the act is the purport of my will only in so far as I am aware of
it. Œdipus, who unwittingly slew his father, is not to be arraigned as a
patricide. In the ancient laws, however, less value was attached to the
subjective side of the act than is done to-day. Hence arose amongst the
ancients asylums, where the fugitive from revenge might be received
and protected.
118. An act, when it has become an external reality, and is con-
nected with a varied outer necessity, has manifold consequences. These
The Philosophy of Right/103
consequences, being the visible shape, whose soul is the end of action,
belong to the act. But at the same time the inner act, when realized as an
end in the external world, is handed over to external forces, which at-
tach to it something quite different from what it is in itself, and thus
carry it away into strange and distant consequences. It is the right of the
will to adopt only the first consequences, since they alone lie in the
purpose.
Note.—The division of consequences into necessary and accidental
is not accurate, because the inner necessity, involved in the finite, is
realized as a necessity which is external, a necessity, that is to say, im-
plying a relation of separate things, which are independent, indifferent
to one another, and only externally connected. The principle “In acting
neglect the consequences,” and the principle “Judge an act by its conse-
quences, and make them the standard of what is right and good,” belong
both alike to the abstract understanding. The consequences are the na-
tive form of the act, simply manifest its nature, and are nothing but the
act itself. The act cannot scorn and disown them. Yet amongst the con-
sequences is included that which is only externally attached to them and
has no fellowship with the act itself.
The development of the contradiction involved in the necessary na-
ture of the finite is in external reality the conversion of necessity into
contingency and vice versa. An overt act must therefore conform to this
law. This law it is which stands the criminal in such good stead, if his
act has had but few consequences; so also must the good act be con-
tented to have few or no consequences. But when the consequences of
crime have fully developed themselves, they add to the severity of the
punishment.
The self-consciousness of the heroic age, painted in the tragedy of
“Œdipus,” for instance, had not risen out of its simplicity, or reflec-
tively appreciated the difference between realized deed and inner act,
between the outer occurrence and the purpose and knowledge of sur-
roundings. Nor did it distinguish between one consequence and another,
but spread responsibility over the whole area of the deed.
Addition.—In the fact that I recognize as mine only what was in my
representation is to be found the transition from purpose to intention.
Only what I knew of the surroundings can be imputed to me. But there
are necessary results attached to even the simplest act, and they are its
universal element. The consequences, which may be prevented from
taking effect, I cannot indeed foresee, but I ought to know the universal
104/G. W. F. Hegel
nature of each separate concrete deed. The thing which I ought to know
is the essential whole, which refers not to special details of an act, but to
its real nature. The transition from purpose to intention consists in my
being aware not merely of my separate act, but of the universal bound
up with it. This universal, when willed by me, is my intention.
Second Section: Intention and Well-being.
119. The external embodiment of an act is composed of many parts, and
may be regarded as capable of being divided into an infinite number of
particulars. An act may be looked on as in the first instance coming into
contact with only one of these particulars. But the truth of the particular
is the universal. A definite act is not confined in its content to one iso-
lated point of the varied external world, but is universal, including these
varied relations within itself. The purpose, which is the product of thought
and embraces not the particular only but also the universal side, is in-
tention.
Note.—Intention (in German, “a looking away from”) implies, ac-
cording to its etymology, an abstraction, which has in part the form of
universality, and partly is the extraction of a particular side of the con-
crete thing. The attempt to justify oneself by the intention consists, in
general, in asserting that one special isolated phase is the subjective
essence of the act.—To pass judgment upon an act simply as an exter-
nal deed, without qualifying it as right or wrong, imparts to it a univer-
sal predicate; it is killing, arson, etc.—When the parts of external real-
ity are taken one by one, their connection must naturally be external.
Reality may be, in the first instance, touched at only a single point.
Arson, e.g., may be directly concerned with only a small piece of wood,
a statement which is merely a proposition, but not a judgment. But this
single point has a universal nature, which involves the extension of it. In
life the separate part is not a mere part, but directly an organ, in which
the universal is really present. Hence in murder it is not a separate piece
of flesh, but the life itself which is destroyed. On one side subjective
reflection, in its ignorance of the logical nature of the particular and the
universal, permits of a dissection into mere particulars and their conse-
quences. On the other side, the act in its finite and casual character
naturally breaks up into separate parts.—The invention of the dolus
indirectus is due to this way of thinking.
Addition.—Manifestly more or fewer circumstances may be included
in an act. In the case of arson, e.g., the fire may not take effect, or it may
The Philosophy of Right/105
spread farther than the agent intended. Yet in neither case is the result
due to good or bad fortune, since man in acting must deal with external-
ity. An old proverb rightly enough says, “A stone flung from the hand is
the devil’s.” In acting I must expose myself to misfortune; that also has
a right to me, and is the manifestation of my own will.
120. The right of intention is that the universal quality of the act
should not only be implicitly present, but should be known by the agent,
and be part and parcel of his subjective will. Conversely the right of
objectivity of action, as it may be called, is to maintain that it be known
and willed by a subject in his character as thinking.
Note.—This right to this insight involves that children, imbeciles,
and lunatics are completely, or almost completely, irresponsible for their
actions. Just as actions on the side of their external reality include acci-
dental results, so also the subjective reality contains an indeterminate
element, which depends upon the strength of self-consciousness and
prudence. But this uncertain element needs to be reckoned with only in
the case of imbecility, lunacy, or childhood. These are the only condi-
tions of mind which supersede thought and free will, and permit us to
take an agent otherwise than in accordance with his dignity as free and
rational.
121. The universal quality of action is in general the manifold con-
tent reduced to the simple form of universality. But the subject turned
back into himself is particular, in opposition to the particulars of the
objective world. He has in his end his own particular content, which
constitutes the essential soul of his act. In the execution of this particu-
lar content of the act consists his subjective freedom in its concrete
character. This is the subject’s right to find in the act his satisfaction.
Addition.—I, as independent and self-referred, am particular, and
opposed to the external side of the act. Its content is decided by my end.
Murder and arson, e.g., are quite general and not the positive content of
me, a subject. When anyone has committed a crime, we ask why he has
done it. Murder is not done for the sake of murder. There must be be-
sides a particular positive end. If delight in murder were the motive of
the crime, it would be the positive content of the subject as such, and the
deed would be the satisfaction of his desire. The motive of a deed con-
tains the moral element, which has the twofold signification of the uni-
versal in purpose and of the particular in intention. In modern times we
are at pains to ask after the motive. Formerly the question was merely,
Is this man just? Does he do his duty? Now we scrutinize the heart, and
106/G. W. F. Hegel
fix a gulf between the objective side of conduct and the internal subjec-
tive side, or motive. No doubt the subject’s own determination must be
con-sidered. What he wills has its ground within him; he wills to satisfy
a pleasure or gratify a passion. But right and good are also precisely
such a content, due, however, not to nature but to my reason. To make
my own freedom the content of my will is a pure characteristic of my
freedom itself. Hence the higher moral phase is to find satisfaction in
the act, not to harp upon a breech between the objectivity of the deed,
and the self- consciousness of man. This defective mode of interpreta-
tion has its epochs as well in world- history as in the history of individu-
als.
122. By virtue of the particular element the act has for me subjec-
tive value or interest. In contrast with this end, whose content is the
intention, the direct act in its wider content is reduced to a means. This
end, as far as it is finite, can again be reduced to a means for a wider
intention, and so on indefinitely.
123. The content of these ends is only (
a) formal activity, that is,
the subject’s interest or aim is to be effected by his agency. Men desire
to be themselves actively interested in whatever is or ought to be their
own. (
b) Further definite content is found for the still abstract and for-
mal freedom of subjectivity only in its natural subjective embodiment,
as inclinations, passions, opinions, whims, etc. The satisfaction of this
content is well-being or happiness in its particular as also in its univer-
sal features. In this satisfaction consist the ends of finitude generally.
Note.—This is the standpoint of relation (§108). The subject at this
stage emphasizes his distinctive and particular nature. Here enters the
content of the natural will (§11). But the will is not in its simple and
direct form, since the content belongs to a will which is turned back into
itself, and raised to the level of a universal end, namely, well-being or
happiness.
Addition.—In so far as the elements of happiness are externally
provided, they are not the true elements of freedom. Freedom truly is
itself only in an end constituted by itself, i.e., the good. Here the ques-
tion may be raised, Has man a right to set up for himself ends which are
not free, and depend simply on his being a living thing? But life in man
is not a mere accident, since it accords with reason. Man has. so far a
right to make his wants an end. There is nothing degrading in one’s
being alive. There is open to us no more spiritual region, in which we
can exist, than that of life. Only through the exaltation of what is exter-
The Philosophy of Right/107
nally provided to the level of something self-created do we enter the
higher altitude of the good. But this distinction implies no intolerance of
either side of man’s nature.
124. Since the subjective satisfaction of the individual, the recogni-
tion for example of oneself as honoured or famous, is involved in the
realization of absolutely valid ends, the demand that only subjective
satisfaction should appear as willed and attained, and also the view that
in action subjective and objective ends exclude each other, are empty
assertions of the abstract understanding. Nay, more, the argument be-
comes a positive evil when it is held that, because subjective satisfac-
tion is always found in every finished work, it must be the essential
intention of the agent, the objective end being only a means to the attain-
ment of this satisfaction. The subject is the series of his acts. If these are
a series of worthless productions, the subjectivity of the will is also
worthless; if the acts are substantial and sound, so likewise is the inner
will of the individual.
Note.—The right of the subject’s particular being to find himself
satisfied, the right, in other words, of subjective freedom, constitutes
the middle or turning-point between the ancient and the modern world.
This right in its infinite nature is expressed in Christianity, and has been
made the universal active principle of a new form of the world. The
more definite manifestations of this principle are love, romance, the
hope of the eternal salvation of the individual, morality also, and con-
science. It includes, moreover, various other forms, which will be, in a
measure, introduced in the sequel as the principle of the civic society,
and as elements of the political constitution, but partly, however, appear
in history generally, especially in the history of art, the sciences, and
philosophy. This principle of particularity is now, indeed, one side of
the contradiction, and, in the first resort, is at least quite as much iden-
tical with the universal as distinct from it. But abstract reflection fas-
tens upon this element in its difference from and opposition to the uni-
versal, and propounds the view that morality must carry on a continued
warfare against the satisfaction of oneself, demanding of us—
“Mit Abscheu zu thun was die Pflicht gebeut.”
5
The same abstract standpoint lies at the root of that psychological
view of history, which seeks to disparage all great deeds and persons. It
emphasizes the particular side, which it has already decreed to be evil,
108/G. W. F. Hegel
considers as the chief factor in the act the honour and glory, which may
accrue to the agent, and transforms and converts the inclinations and
passions, whose satisfaction was only one element of the total result,
into the agent’s main intention and active principle. This same abstract
point of view asserts that because great acts, and the real result brought
to pass by a series of them, have produced a great effect upon the world,
and have naturally resulted to the agent in power, honour, and renown,
therefore there belongs to the individual not the greatness, but merely
these particular and external results. The reason assigned is that the
particular consequence, since it was admittedly an end, must be the sole
end. Such abstract thinking sees only the subjective side of great men,
the side which constitutes its own essence. In its self- constituted vanity
it overlooks their real nature. It takes the view of the “psychological
valet for whom there are no heroes, not because there are no heroes, but
because he is only a valet.”
Addition.—The sentence, In magnis voluisse sat est, is right, if it
means that one should will something great. But he should also carry it
put, otherwise his volition is vain. The laurels of mere willing are dry
leaves, which have never been green.
125. The subjective, whose concern is with the particular content of
well-being, is, when it becomes infinite by being turned back into itself,
at the same time brought into relation with implicit or general will. This
new element, established, in the first instance, in particularity itself, is
the well-being of others; in its complete but quite empty character it is
the well-being of all. The well-being of many other particular persons is
therefore an essential end or right of subjectivity. But since the absolute
universal, which is distinguished from this particular content, is here
defined simply as right, the ends of the particular will may or may not
be in real accordance with the universal.
126. My own particularity, and likewise the particularity of others
are, however, a right, only in so far as I am free. They cannot maintain
themselves in opposition to their real basis. An intention to further my
well-being or that of others, rightly called a moral intention, cannot
justify a wrong act.
Note.—It is one of the most corrupt maxims of our day which, origi-
nating in the pre-Kantian period of the good heart, and furnishing the
quintessence of some well-known touching dramas, undertakes in the
case of wrong acts to excite interest in the so-called moral intention. It
pictures bad persons as having hearts filled with good intentions and
The Philosophy of Right/109
desires for their own well-being, and perhaps for that of others as well.
A heightened form of this theory has been vamped up in our own time.
Inner inspiration and feeling, the very soul of particularity, have been
made the criterion of what is right, reasonable, and excellent. Crime has
been pronounced right, reasonable, and excellent, as also have the
thoughts which led to it, merely on the ground that they proceeded from
inspiration and feeling, though they may have been in fact the most
hollow and commonplace whims and most foolish opinions (§140,
note).—Observe further that here under right and well-being we are
considering the formal right and particular well-being of the individual.
The so-called general welfare, the well-being of the state, the right of
the real, concrete spirit is quite another region, in which formal right
and the particular well-being or happiness of the individual are subordi-
nate elements. It has already been remarked that it is one of the most
frequent misconceptions of the abstract intellect to set up private right
and private well-being as absolutely valid in opposition to the universal
principle of the state.
Addition.—We may quote here the celebrated retort given to the
libeller, who excused himself with the remark, “Il faut donc que je vive.”
“Je n’en vois pas la necessité,” was the reply. Life is not necessary
against the higher fact of freedom. When the holy Crispinus steals leather
to make boots for the poor, his act, though moral, is not right, and can-
not be justified.
127. The particular interests of the natural will, viewed as a simple
whole, constitute personal reality or the life. In the final resort, life,
when in collision with another’s rightful ownership, can claim the right
of necessity, not on the ground of equity but of right. Observe that on
the one side is placed the infinite destruction of our outer existence, and
therefore the complete loss of rights; on the other side an injury to only
a particular and limited embodiment of one’s freedom. A slight injury to
a particular possession does not violate the injured man’s right, as such,
or his capacity for right.
Note.—Prom this right of need flows the benefit of competence (ben-
eficium competentice), by virtue of which there is allowed to the debtor
some of his tools, implements, clothes, and means generally, all of which
are of course the property of the creditor. The allowance covers so much
as is deemed sufficient for the possible maintenance of one in the debtor’s
class.
Addition.—Life, or the totality of ends, has a right against abstract
110/G. W. F. Hegel
right. For instance, by the theft of a loaf of bread a property is doubtless
injured. Still, if the act was the means of prolonging life, it would be
wrong to consider it as ordinary theft. If the man whose life is in danger
were not allowed to preserve himself, he would be without rights; and,
since his life is refused him, his whole freedom is denied to him also.
Many things, it is true, must go to secure life, especially if we regard the
future. But to live now is all that is necessary; the future is not absolute,
and remains exposed to accidents. Hence only the need of the immediate
present can justify a wrong act. Yet the act is justified, because the
agent, abstaining from it, would commit the highest wrong, namely, the
total negation of his realized freedom. The beneficium competentice
implies the right to ask that no man shall be wholly sacrificed to mere
right.
128. Need reveals the finite and contingent character of both right
and well-being, that is to say, of that abstract embodiment of freedom,
which is not the existence of any particular person, and also of the sphere
of the particular will, which excluded the universality of right. The one-
sidedness or ideality of these phases is found in the conception itself.
Right has already been embodied as the particular will (§106); and sub-
jectivity, in the whole range of its particularity, is itself the embodiment
of freedom (§127), and also, in its character as the infinite reference of
the will to itself, is it implicitly the universal side of freedom. These two
elements in their truth and identity, although, in the first instance, only
in relative reference to each other, are on the one hand the good, as the
fulfilled and absolutely definite universal, and, on the other hand, con-
science, or.an infinite subjectivity, which is aware of itself, and deter-
mines in itself its content.
Third Section: The Good and Conscience.
129. The good is the idea, or unity of the conception of the will with the
particular will. Abstract right, well-being, the subjectivity of conscious-
ness, and the contingency of external reality, are in their independent
and separate existences superseded in this unity, although in their real
essence they are contained in it and preserved. This unity is realized
freedom, the absolute final cause of the world.
Addition.—Every stage is properly the idea, but the earlier steps
contain the idea only in more abstract form. The I, as person, is already
the idea, although in its most abstract guise. The good is the idea more
completely determined; it is the unity of the conception of will with the
The Philosophy of Right/111
particular will. It is not something abstractly right, but has a real con-
tent, whose substance constitutes both right and well-being.
130. In this idea well-being has value, not independently as the real-
ization of the separate particular will, but only as universal well-being,
as universal, that is, in its essence, intrinsically or in accordance with
freedom. Hence, well-being is not a good, if separated from right; nor is
right a good, if separated from well-being. Fiat justitia ought not to
have pereat mundus as a consequence. The good, carrying a necessity
to be actualized by the particular will, and comprising the vital essence
of such a will, has absolute right over the mere abstract right of prop-
erty and the particular ends of well-being. If either of these elements is
distinguished from the good, it has validity only in so far as it accords
with the good and subordinates itself to it.
131. The subjective will finds in the good the supremely essential,
and has worth and merit only as its insight and intention accord with the
good. In so far as the good in this place is still the abstract idea of the
good, the subjective will is not yet carried up into it, and made one with
it. It stands to the good in a relation of the following kind. As the good
is for it what is real and substantial, it ought to make the good its end
and realize it; and on the other hand it is only through the medium of the
subjective will that the good can be realized.
Addition.—The good is the truth of the particular will. But the will
is only that to which it sets itself. It is not inherently good, but becomes
what it is only by its work. On the other side the good apart from the
subjective will is only an abstraction having no reality. Reality first
comes to the good through the private will. Thus the development of the
good contains these three stages. (1) For me, as willing, the good should
be particular will, and I should know it. (2) We should say what thing is
good, and develop the particular phases of the good. (3) We determine
the independent good, particularizing it as infinite and independent sub-
jectivity. This inner determination is conscience.
132. It is the right of the subjective will that it should regard as
good what it recognizes as authoritative. It is the individual’s right, too,
that an act, as the outer realization of an end, should be counted right or
wrong, good or evil, lawful or unlawful, according to his knowledge of
the worth it has when objectively realized.
Note.—The good is in general the essence of the will in its substan-
tive and universal character, the will in its truth. It exists solely in and
by means of thought. The doctrines that man cannot understand the
112/G. W. F. Hegel
truth but must deal with appearances only, and that thinking does harm
to the good will, take away from spirit all its intellectual and ethical
merit and value. The right to admit nothing, which I do not regard as
reasonable, is the highest right of the subject. But because of its subjec-
tive character it is a formal right. So that on the opposite hand the right
to the subject of the reasonable or objective remains.
Because of its formal nature insight may be either truth or mere
opinion and error. Whether or not the individual attains to the right of
his insight belongs, at least from the moral standpoint, to his particular
subjective character. I can make it a claim upon myself, and regard it as
a subjective right, that I should be convinced that the grounds of an
obligation are good. I may even claim that I should know them in their
conception and nature. But my demand for the satisfaction of my con-
viction as to what is good, what allowed and what not allowed, and also
as to my responsibility, does not infringe upon the right of objectivity.
Right of insight into the good is different from right of insight (§117)
with regard to action as such. The right of objectivity means that the act
must be a change in the actual world, be recognized there, and in gen-
eral be adequate to what has validity there. Whoso will act in this actual
world has thereby submitted to its laws, and recognized the right of
objectivity. Similarly in the state which is the objectivity of the concep-
tion of reason, legal responsibility does not adapt itself to what any one
person holds to be reasonable or unreasonable. It does not adhere to
subjective insight into right or wrong, good or evil, or to the claims
which an individual makes for the satisfaction of his conviction. In this
objective field the right of insight is reckoned as insight into what is
legal or illegal, or the actual law. It limits itself to its simplest meaning,
namely, knowledge of or acquaintance with what is lawful and binding.
Through the publicity of the laws and through general customs the state
removes from the right of insight that which is for the subject its formal
side. It removes also the element of chance, which at our present stand-
point still clings to it.
The right of the subject to know the act as good or evil, legal or
illegal, has the result of lessening or abolishing responsibility in the case
of children, imbeciles, and lunatics, although the conditions of this re-
sponsibility cannot be definitely stated. But to take into consideration
momentary fascination, the allurement of passion, drunkenness, or the
strength of what are called sensual impulses generally, that impulse alone
being excepted which forms the basis of the right of need (§120), to
The Philosophy of Right/113
consider these things in estimating the character of a crime and its li-
ability to punishment, or to suppose that these circum-stances will re-
move the guilt of a criminal act, is to neglect right and the true dignity of
manhood (§100, and §119, note). The nature of man is essentially uni-
versal. His consciousness does not exist as a mere abstract moment of
time or in isolated parts. Just as the incendiary sets on fire not a separate
piece of wood an inch long, which he touches with his match, but the
universal involved in it, namely the house, so he does not exist merely in
one single moment, or in one isolated passion for revenge. If so, he
would be an animal, which, because of its dangerous and passionate
nature would have to be be killed. It is claimed that the criminal in the
moment of his act must have pre-sented clearly to himself the nature of
the wrong he is doing and of his liability to punishment, if the act is to be
counted to him for a crime. This claim seems to preserve to him the right
of his moral subjectivity, but it really denies to him that indwelling intel-
ligent nature, which in its active presence has no affinity with the clear
images of purely animal psychology. Only in the case of lunacy is intel-
ligence so distorted as to be separated from the consciousness of par-
ticular things and the doing of them. The sphere, in which circumstances
are adduced as grounds for leniency, is not that of right but of mercy.
133. Since the good is the essence of the will of the particular sub-
ject, it is his obligation. As the good is distinct from particularity, and
particularity occurs in the subjective will, the good has at the outset
only the character of universal abstract essence. This abstract universal
is duty. Hence duty, as is required by its character, must be done for
duty’s sake.
Addition.—The essence of the will is for me duty. Yet if I know no
more than that the good is my duty, it is for me still abstract. Duty
should be done for duty’s sake, and it is my objective nature in the truest
sense which I realize in duty; in doing it I am self-centred and free. It is
the signal merit of the standpoint of the Kantian philosophy of action
that it has made prominent this signification of duty.
134. Since an act requires its own special content and definite end,
and duty in the abstract contains no such end, there arises the question,
What is duty? No answer is at once forthcoming, except “To do right,
and to consider one’s own well-being, and the general well-being, the
well- being of others “ (§119).
Addition.—Precisely the same question was proposed to Jesus, when
it was asked of him, “What should be done to obtain eternal life?” The
114/G. W. F. Hegel
universal good cannot, if abstractly taken, be realized. If it is to be
realized, it must be given a particular content.
135. The two points of this answer, being each of them conditioned
and limited, are not in fact contained in duty itself, but effect the transi-
tion into the higher sphere of the unconditioned, or duty. In so far as
duty is the universal or essence of the moral consciousness, and merely
refers itself to itself within itself, it is only an abstract universality, and
has for its characteristic an identity without content, an abstract posi-
tive, an absence of definite character.
Note.—It is important to be clear that the pure unconditioned self-
direction of the will is the root of duty. This doctrine of volition attained
to a firm basis and starting-point first of all in the Kantian philosophy
through the thought of the infinite autonomy of the will (§133). Yet if
this merely moral standpoint does not pass into the conception of the
ethical system, this philosophical acquisition is reduced to empty for-
malism, and moral science is converted into mere rhetoric about duty
for duty’s sake. From such a position can be derived no inherent doc-
trine of duties. Materials, it is true, may be introduced from without,
and in this way specific duties may be secured; but from duty, whose
characteristic is an absence of contradiction or formal concord with
itself, a characteristic which is no more than the establishment of ab-
stract indefi-niteness, no specific duties can be deduced. Nor, further, if
any specific content of action comes up for consideration, is there in this
principle any way of judging whether it is a duty or not. On the contrary,
all manner of wrong and immoral acts may be by such a method justi-
fied.
The more detailed Kantian statement, the suitability of an act to be
presented as a universal rule, implies indeed the more concrete notion of
a condition, but really contains no other principle than absence of con-
tradiction, or formal identity. The rule that there should be no private
property contains of itself no contradiction, nor does the proposition
that this or that particular nation or family should not exist, or that no
one should live at all. Only if it is really fixed and assumed that private
property and human life should exist and be respected, is it a contradic-
tion to commit theft or murder. There can be no contradiction except of
something that exists or of a content, which is assumed to be a fixed
principle. Only such a content can an act agree with or contradict. But
duty which must be willed only as such, and not for the sake of a con-
tent, is a formal identity excluding all content and specific character.
The Philosophy of Right/115
Other antinomies and developments of the Kantian position, in which
is shown how the moral standpoint of relation wanders aimlessly around
without being able to find a way of escape from the mere abstract im-
perative, I have given in the “Phänomenologie des Geistes.”
Addition.—Although we exalted the standpoint of the Kantian phi-
losophy, in so far as it nobly insists that duty should accord with reason,
yet its weakness is that it lacks all organic filling. The proposition, “Con-
sider if thy maxim can be set up as a universal rule” would be all right,
if we already had definite rules concerning what should be done. A prin-
ciple that is suitable for universal legislation already presupposes a con-
tent. If the content is present, the application of the law is an easy mat-
ter. But in the Kantian theory the rule is not to hand, and the criterion
that there should be no contradiction produces nothing. Where there is
nothing, there can be no contradiction.
136. Owing to the abstract nature of the good, the other side of the
idea, i.e., particularity in general, falls within subjectivity. This subjec-
tivity, universalized by being turned back into itself, is absolute certi-
tude [Gewissheit.] of itself within itself. In this character it establishes
particularity, it determines and judges. This is conscience. [Gewissen.]
Addition.—We may speak in a lofty strain of duty, and this way of
speaking elevates mankind, and widens the heart. Yet if nothing definite
comes of it, it at last grows tedious. Spirit demands and is entitled to a
particular content. But conscience is the deepest internal solitude, from
which both limit and the external have wholly disappeared. It is a thor-
ough-going retreat into itself. Man in his conscience is no longer bound
by the ends of particularity. This is a higher standpoint, the standpoint
of the modern world. We have now arrived at the stage of conscious-
ness, which involves a recoil upon itself. Earlier ages were more sensu-
ous, and had before them something external and given, whether it was
religion or law. But conscience is aware of itself as thought, and knows
that my thought is for me the only thing that is binding.
137. True conscience is the disposition to desire what is absolutely
good. It has therefore fixed rules, which are for it independently objec-
tive phases and duties. Distinguished from this, which is its content or
truth, conscience is only the formal side of the activity of the will, and
the will as particular has no content peculiarly its own. The objective
system of rules and duties and the union of them with the subjective
consciousness appear first in the sphere of ethical observance. But at
the formal standpoint of morality, conscience is devoid of objective con-
116/G. W. F. Hegel
tent. It is merely an infinite certitude of itself and is formal and abstract.
It is the certitude of a particular subject.
Note.—Conscience expresses the absolute claim of the subjective
self-consciousness to know in itself and from itself what right and duty
are, and to recognize nothing except what it thus knows to be good. It
asserts also that what it so knows and wills is right and duty in very
truth. Conscience, as the unity of the subject’s will with the absolute, is
a holy place which it would be sacrilege to assault. But whether the
conscience of a certain individual is proportionate to this idea of con-
science, in other words, whether what the individual conscience holds
and gives out to be good is really good, can be ascertained only bv an
examination of the contents of the intended good. Bight and duty, viewed
as absolutely reasonable phases of will, are not in essence the particular
property of an individual. Nor do they assume the form of perception or
any other phase of mere individual sensuous consciousness. They are
the universal products of thought, and exist in the form of laws and
principles. Conscience is therefore subject to the judgment whether it is
true or not, and its appeal merely to itself is directly opposed to what it
wills to be, the rule, that is, of a reasonable absolutely valid way of
acting. For this reason the state cannot recognize conscience in its pecu-
liar form as subjective consciousness, just as subjective opinion, or the
dogmatic appeal to a subjective opinion, can be of no avail in science.
The elements which are united in true conscience can be separated.
The determining subjectivity of consciousness and will may separate
itself from the true content, proceed to establish itself, and reduce the
true content to a form and unreality. Thus the term conscience is am-
biguous. On the one hand it is presupposed in the identity of subjective
consciousness and will with the true good, and is therefore maintained
and recognized to be a holy thing. On the other hand it is the mere
subjective return of consciousness into itself, claiming the authority which
conscience in its first form possesses solely because of its absolutely
valid and rational content. Now, at the moral standpoint, distinguished
as it is in this treatise from ethical observance, there occurs only the
formal conscience. The true conscience is mentioned here only to em-
phasize the difference between the two and to remove the possibility of
supposing that here, where the formal conscience alone is considered,
the argument is concerned with the true. But to repeat, the true con-
science looms up only in the sequel, and has to do with the properly
social disposition. The religious conscience, however, does not belong
The Philosophy of Right/117
to this sphere at all.
Addition.—When we speak of conscience, it may easily be sup-
posed that because of its abstract inner form, it is already the absolutely
true conscience. But conscience as true wills absolute good and abso-
lute duty. As we must here deal with the abstract good, conscience is so
far devoid of this objective content, and is at first only the infinite certi-
tude of itself.
138. Subjectivity, as abstract self-determination and pure certitude
only of itself, dissolves within itself all definite realization of right and
duty. It passes judgment within itself, determines solely out of itself
what is good, and makes this self-produced good its content. It bestows
reality upon a good which is at first only presented and intended.
Note.—The self-consciousness, which has reached absolute return
into itself, is conscious of itself as something over which nothing that
exists or is given to it can or ought to have any power. This tendency to
look within, and know and decide from oneself what is right and good,
assumes a more general form in history, appearing at epochs such as
that of Socrates, the Stoics, etc., when the accepted ethical principles
could not satisfy the better will. When the visible world has become
untrue to freedom, the will no longer finds itself in the established mo-
rality, and is forced to seek the harmony, which the actual world has
lost, in the inner ideal life. Since the right, which self-consciousness
acquires in this way, is formal, everything depends upon the nature of
the content, which it gives itself.
Addition.—In the simple conception of conscience all definite phases
of will are dissolved, and must proceed out of it again. Everything that
is recognized as right or duty can in the first instance be proved by
thought to be worthless, limited, and merely relative. But subjectivity,
though it dissolves all content, must develop it again out of itself. Ev-
erything which comes to pass in ethical observance, is to be produced
by this activity of spirit. But, on the other side, this standpoint is defec-
tive, because it is merely abstract. When I am conscious of my freedom
as inner substantive reality, I do no act; yet if I do act and seek prin-
ciples, I must try to obtain definite characters for my act. The demand is
then made that this definite context shall be deduced from the concep-
tion of the free will. Hence, if it is right to absorb right and duty into
subjectivity, it is on the other hand wrong if this abstract basis of action
is not again evolved. Only in times when reality is a hollow, unspiritual,
and shadowy existence, can a retreat be permitted out of the actual into
118/G. W. F. Hegel
an inner life. Socrates appeared at the time of the decay of the Athenian
democracy. He dissolved what was established, and fled back into him-
self, to seek there what was right and good. In our own time also it
occurs more or less frequently that reverence for the established is want-
ing, and that man. holds his own will as for himself valid and authorita-
tive.
139. Self-consciousness, affirming to be vanity all otherwise valid
marks of action, and itself consisting of pure inwardness of will, may
possibly convert the absolute universal into mere caprice. It may make
a principle out of what is peculiar to particularity, placing it over the
universal and realizing it in action. This is evil.
Note.—If conscience is taken as formal subjectivity, it is on the
verge of being transformed into evil. In a self-certitude, which exists for
itself, knows and decides for itself, both morality and evil have their
common root.
The origin of evil in general lies in the mystery, i.e., the speculative
process, of freedom, in the necessity of freedom to rise out of its natural
state, and find itself within itself in opposition to the natural. In this
opposition the natural will is contradictory of itself and incompatible
with itself, and comes in this divided state into existence. Hence the
particularity of the will itself receives the further mark of evil. Particu-
larity has a twofold character, exhibited here in the opposition of the
natural to the inner will. Through this opposition the inner phase of will
gets only a relative and formal existence, and therefore has to create its
content out of the elements of the natural will, such as desire, impulse,
and inclination. These desires and impulses may be either good or evil.
But again, owing to their mere naturalness, they are contingent, and the
will, as at present constituted, takes them in their contingent character
as its content and brings them under the form of particularity. It thus
becomes opposed to universality, the inner objective reality or the good,
which, since it involves the return of the will into itself and a conscious-
ness aware of itself, stands at the other extreme from the direct objectiv-
ity of what is merely natural. Thus also is this inner condition of the will
evil. Man is consequently evil at once by nature or of himself and through
his reflection within himself. Evil is not limited solely either to nature as
such, unless it were the natural condition of a will which confines itself
to its particular content, or to the reflection which goes into itself and
includes cognition, unless it were to adhere to an antagonism to the
good.
The Philosophy of Right/119
Along with the phase, that evil of necessity is, goes inseparably the
phase that evil of necessity shall not be. In other words, evil is that
which is to be superseded. Nevertheless, evil from the first standpoint of
disruption must make its appearance, since it constitutes the division
between the unreasoning beast and man. We must not, however, remain
at this standpoint, or cling to the particular as though it in contrast with
the universal were essential, but must overcome it, and set it aside as
null and void. Further, as to this necessity of evil, it is subjectivity, or
the infinity constituted by the reflex action of consciousness, which has
this opposition before itself and exists in it. If it remains there, i.e., if it
is evil, it exists simply for itself, counts itself as independent, and is
mere caprice. Hence the individual subject as such has the guilt of his
evil.
Addition.—Abstract certitude, which is aware of itself as the basis
of everything, involves the possibility of willing the universality of the
conception, but also the possibility of making a principle out of a par-
ticular content and realizing it. This second possibility is evil. To evil
always belongs the abstraction implied in self-certitude, and man alone,
just in so far as he can be evil, is good. Good and evil are inseparable,
their unity lying in this, that the conception becomes objective to itself
and forthwith, as an object, involves distinction. The evil will wills some-
thing that is opposed to the universality of will; but the good will is in
accordance with its true conception.
The difficulty as to how the will can be evil is due usually to our
thinking of the will as in only a positive relation to itself, and to our
representing it as some definite thing existing for itself, i.e., as the good.
The question as to the origin of evil may be put better thus: How does
the negative enter into the positive? If God in the creation of the world is
supposed to be the absolutely positive, then, let man turn where he will,
he cannot in the positive find the negative. The view that God permitted
evil to exist, involving a passive relation of God to evil, offers no satis-
factory solution of the problem. In the religious myth the origin of evil is
not rationally conceived; the negative is not recognized to be in the posi-
tive. One is supposed to come after the other or to exist side by side with
it, so that the negative comes to the positive from the outside. With this
view thought cannot be satisfied. Thought desires a reason and a neces-
sary relation, and insists that the negative and positive spring from the
self-same root. The solution of the difficulty from the standing-ground
of the conception is already contained in the conception. The concep-
120/G. W. F. Hegel
tion, or, to speak more concretely, the idea, must in its very essence find
distinctions in itself and establish itself as negative. To adhere to the
positive merely, that is to say to the pure good, which shall be in its
origin nothing but good, is an empty effort of the understanding, which
creates difficulty by introducing one-sidedness and abstraction. But from
the ground of the conception the positive phase is apprehended as an
activity distinguishing itself from itself. Evil as well as good has its
origin in the will, and the will in its conception is both good and evil.
The natural will is, as it stands, a contradiction, implying a distinction
of itself from itself, in order that it may be consciously for itself, and
attain its inward nature.
The proposition, that owing to the nature of evil man is evil, in so
far as his will is natural, is opposed to a current idea that it is precisely
the natural will which is innocent and good. But the natural will is op-
posed to the content of freedom. The child, or uneducated man, possess-
ing only the natural will, is not fully responsible. When we speak of
man, we mean not children but self- conscious men. When we speak of
good, we include a knowledge of it. Now, the natural or the ingenuous is
of itself neither good nor evil, but when related to will, as freedom and
knowledge of freedom, it is not free, and hence evil. When the natural is
willed by man, it is no longer simply the natural, but the negative of the
good, or the negative of the conception of the will.
If we were to say that, since evil lies in the conception, and exists of
necessity, men are no longer responsible when they adopt it, it must be
replied that their decision is their own deed, the act of their freedom, and
therefore to be laid at their door. In religious fable it is said that man is
like God in his having a knowledge of good and evil. The resemblance
to God is a fact so far as the necessity is not a necessity of nature, but
rather a decision transcending the state in which good and evil are in-
volved alike. Since both good and evil confront me, I may choose either,
resolve upon either, and take up either into my subjectivity. It is the
nature of evil that man may will it, although he is not forced by neces-
sity to do so.
140. As every end belongs to the purpose of actual concrete action,
it necessarily has a positive side (§130), which self-consciousness knows
on occasion how to bring forward. But as self- consciousness implies a
turning back into oneself, and is aware of the universal of the will, an
act has also a negative side. The positive side of an act, whose negative
content stands in open contrast with the universal, may be looked on as
The Philosophy of Right/121
a duty and an excellent motive, and be maintained by self-conscious-
ness to be good for others as well as for itself. To hold it good for others
is hypocrisy; and to hold it good for itself is a still higher summit of the
subjectivity, which maintains itself to be the absolute.
Note.—The final most abstruse form of evil, that in which evil is
turned into good and good into evil, in which, too, consciousness knows
itself as the transforming power, and therefore as absolute, is the very
summit of subjectivity from the moral standpoint. It is the form to which
evil has risen in our time, and that, too, through philosophy, or rather a
shallowness of thought, which has contorted a deep conception, and
presumes to give itself the name of philosophy, just as it presumes to
give to evil the name of good. In this note I shall mention briefly the
chief forms of this subjectivity, which are in vogue.
(a) Dissimulation, or hypocrisy. In it are contained the following
elements: (
a) knowledge of the true universal, whether it be in the form
of the feeling of right and duty, or in the form of a thorough knowledge
of them; (
b) the willing of the particular, which is in open strife with the
universal; and (
g) explicit comparison of the universal and particular,
so that, for the willing consciousness itself, its particular will is under-
stood to be evil. These three elements comprise the act done with evil
conscience, but are not yet hypocrisy as such.—It was at one time a
very important question whether an act is evil only in as far as it is done
with an evil conscience, i.e., with a developed consciousness of the ele-
ments involved in the act. Pascal (“Les Provinc.” 4e lettre) well draws
out the consequences of an affirmative answer to this question. He says,
“Ils seront tous damnés ces demi pécheurs, qui ont quelque amour pour
la vertu. Mais pour ces francs-pécheurs, pécheurs endurcis, pécheurs
sans mélange, pleins et achevés, l’enfer ne les tient pas: ils ont trompé le
diable à force de s’y abandonner.”
6
The subjective right of self-consciousness, to know whether the act
falls under the category of good or evil, must not be thought of as collid-
ing with the absolute right of the objectivity of this category. At least,
the two are not to be represented as separable, indifferent to each other,
and related only casually. And yet this is just the view which lay at the
basis of the old-time question about saving grace. [Wirksame Gnade.]
Evil on its formal side is that which is most peculiarly the individual’s
own, since it is his subjectivity setting itself up as wholly and purely its
own. For it he is, therefore, responsible (§139 and note). On the objec-
tive side, man in his conception as spirit is rational, and has solely in
122/G. W. F. Hegel
himself a universality, which is aware of itself. Hence we fail to treat
him in accordance with the dignity of his conception, when we separate
from him either the goodness of a good act or the evil of an evil act, and
refuse to impute it to him as good or evil. How definite may be the
consciousness of these two distinguishable sides in man, with what de-
gree of clearness or obscurity this consciousness may become knowl-
edge, or how far in an evil act conscience may be formal, are questions
with which we are not much concerned. They belong to the empirical
side of the subject-matter.
(b) But evil and to act with evil conscience are not yet hypocrisy.
We must add the formal phase of untruth, in which evil is maintained to
be good and good for others. The agent represents as good, conscien-
tious, and pious an act, which is merely an artifice for the betrayal of
others. But by means of what is otherwise good and pious, namely, by
good reasons generally, an evil man may find a justification of his evil,
transforming evil into something good for himself. The possibility of
such a transformation is found in the abstract and negative subjectivity,
which is conscious that all phases must submit to and spring from it.
(c) Allied to the foregoing is what is known as probability. Its prin-
ciple is that if consciousness can trump up one good reason, be it only
the authority of a single theologian, whose judgment, it may be, is dis-
approved by others, the act is permissible, and conscience may be at
ease. Such a reason or authority, it is acknowledged, gives at best only
probability, but that is supposed to be enough to confirm the conscience.
It is admitted also that a good reason does not exclude others, which
may be quite as good. Further, in this form of subjectivity there is a
touch of the objective in the concession that conduct should be based on
a ground or reason. But to the many good reasons and authorities, which
might be adduced in favour of a certain line of action, may be opposed
just as many good reasons for an opposite course. Hence the decision is
intrusted not to the objectivity of the thing, but to subjectivity; liking
and caprice are made the discerners between good and evil, and ethical
observance and religion are undermined. But since it is given out that
some reason, and not private subjectivity, is the basis of decision, prob-
ability is so far a form of hypocrisy.
(d) The next higher stage is the assertion that the good will shall
consist in willing the good; the willing of the abstract good shall be the
sole requisite for a good act. Since the act, as a definite volition, has a
content, while the abstract good determines nothing, it devolves upon
The Philosophy of Right/123
the private individual to give the good filling and definiteness. In prob-
ability there must be obtained from some Reverend Père authority to
bring a definite content under the general category of the good. But here
every subject, simply as he stands, is invested with the dignity of giving
a content to the abstract good, or, what is the same thing, of bringing a
content under the universal. But this content is only one of several sides
of a concrete act, which may, on another of its sides, be bad or criminal.
And yet my subjective estimate of the good is the good as known by me
in the act; it is my good intention (§111). Thus arises an opposition
between different phases, in accordance with one of which the act is
good, but in accordance with another, criminal. Here, too, would seem
to come up the question, if, in the actual act, the intention is really good.
But at this standpoint, at which abstract good is the determining motive,
the good not only may but must be the real intention. And, however bad
and criminal they may be in other directions, the results of an act, which
completes a good intention, are also good. We seem forced to ask which
of these sides is essential. But this objective question cannot here be put;
or rather the only objective is the decision of the subjective conscious-
ness itself. Besides, at this standpoint the terms essential and good have
the same meaning. Both are abstractions. Good is that which in regard
to the will is essential; and the essential in regard to the will is that an act
shall be for me good. But here one may place any pleasurable content he
likes under the abstract good, because this good, having no content of
its own, is reduced to mean merely a bare positive, something, that is,
which may have value from some point of view, and also in its direct
phase may be made to count as an essential end. Such a positive action
might be, e.g., to do good to the poor, or to provide for myself, my life,
or my family. Further, as the good is abstract, the bad also must be
without content, and must receive definiteness from my subjectivity.
Hence arises the moral end to hate and root out the bad.
Theft, cowardice, murder, as acts of a subjective will, imply at the
very outset the satisfaction of this will, and are therefore something
positive. Now, that the act may be good, I simply need to know this
positive side of it as my intention. Hence the act is at once decided to be
good, because to know it as good is involved in my intention. Theft for
the benefit of the poor, theft or flight from battle, in order to fulfil the
duty of caring for one’s life or one’s family, which may be poor, murder
through hate and revenge, i.e., to satisfy a sense of right, or of my right,
or of the wickedness of another, or to satisfy a sense of the wrong done
124/G. W. F. Hegel
by him to me or others, or the world, or people generally, by extirpating
him as thoroughly bad, and thus contributing something to the extermi-
nation of evil,—all these acts are on their positive side good in intention
and so good in act. There is needed a superlatively small effort of the
understanding to discover, as did the learned divines aforesaid, for ev-
ery act a positive side, and a good reason or intention.—Hence it has
been said that there are no evil men, because no one wills evil for evil’s
sake, an act which would be purely negative. He always wills something
positive, and therefore, from this point of vision, good. In this abstract
good the distinction between good and evil, and all real duties also, have
disappeared. Accordingly, merely to will the good, merely to have a
good intention when we act, is evil because the willed good is an ab-
straction, and the ascertainment of what is good is left to the caprice of
the subject.
To this place belongs the famous sentence, “The end justifies the
means.” This expression, as it stands, is trivial, because one could as
vaguely reply that a just end justifies the means, but an unjust end does
not. The expression would then be tautological, since the means, if they
are real means, are nothing of themselves but are only for the sake of
something else, from which they derive their worth.—But this saying is
not meant in a merely formal and indefinite sense. It justifies the use for
a good end of something not strictly a means at all. It justifies and incul-
cates as a duty even crime and the violation of what is of itself just, as
means for effecting a good end. In this saying there floats a general
consciousness of the dialectic of the positive element, alluded to above,
as it bears upon right and ethics, and upon such indefinite propositions
as “Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt care for thy own well-being and
that of thy family.” In law and war, to kill is not only a right but a duty;
but in these cases there is an accurate description of the circumstances
under which, and also of the kind of men whom it is permitted or en-
joined to kill. In the same way my well-being and the well-being of my
family must yield to higher ends, and be reduced to means. But a crime
is not an indistinct generality, which has to undergo a process of dialec-
tic, but something definitely and objectively limited. Yet the end which
is to oppose this crime and deprive it of its nature, the holy and just end,
is only the subjective opinion of what is good or better. Thus, here again
the will holds to the abstract good; and every absolutely valid mark of
the good and bad, of right and wrong, is superseded by and handed over
to the feeling, opinion, and liking of the individual.
The Philosophy of Right/125
(e) Subjective opinion is openly pronounced to be the rule of right
and duty, when the conviction that a thing is right is declared to be the
criterion of the ethical character of an act. As the good, which is here
willed, is still without content, the principle of conviction implies that it
is simply for the subject to decide whether the act is good or not. Thus
here also all semblance of ethical objectivity has vanished. Such a theory
has direct affinity with the so-called philosophy, already repeatedly al-
luded to, which denies the possibility of knowing the truth, and, in so
doing, denies also the moral laws, which are the truth and reason of
spirit as will. Such philosophizing, as it proclaims a knowledge of the
truth to be vanity, and the circle of knowledge to be mere appearance,
must obviously make appearance the principle of action also. Thus ethi-
cal principles are decided by the individual’s peculiar view of life and
his private conviction. This degradation of philosophy appears, indeed,
to outsiders as of supremely small importance, and to be confined merely
to the idle talk of the school. But the view necessarily makes its way into
ethics, which is an essential part of philosophy. The real world sees the
meaning of these views only when they have become a reality.
By the spread of the view that subjective conviction alone decides
the ethical value of an act, it has come to pass that hypocrisy, formerly
much discussed, is now hardly spoken of at all. To mark hypocrisy as
evil is to believe that certain acts are beyond all question trespasses,
vices, and crimes; that also, he who commits them must know what they
are, knowing and recognizing, as he does, the principles and outward
acts of piety and right, even in the false guise under which he misuses
them. Or, perhaps, with regard to evil, it was assumed that it is a duty to
know the good and to distinguish it from evil. In any case it was uncon-
ditionally claimed that men should do nothing vicious or criminal, and
that if they did, they must, just so far as they are men, not cattle, be held
responsible. But when the good heart, good intentions, and subjective
conviction are said to decide the value of action, there is no longer any
hypocrisy, or, for that matter, evil at all. Since whatever an individual
does he can convert into good by the reflective intervention of good
intentions and motives; and by virtue of his conviction his act is good.
7
There is no longer any absolute vice or crime. Instead of frank and free,
hardened and untroubled transgression
8
appears the consciousness of
complete justification through intention and conviction; my good inten-
tion and my conviction that the act is good make it good. To pass sen-
tence upon an act is merely to judge of the intention, conviction, or faith
126/G. W. F. Hegel
of the agent. Faith is not used here in the sense in which Christ demands
faith in objective truth. In that sense, if a man has a bad faith, i.e., a
conviction which is in its content evil, he must accordingly be condemned.
But faith here means simply fidelity to conviction. When we ask if a
man has remained true to his conviction, we refer to the merely formal
subjective faith, which is supposed of itself to contain his duty.
Because the principle of conviction is subjective, there is forced
upon us the thought of the possibility of error, and in this thought is the
implication of an absolute law. But a law does not act; it is only a real
human being who acts. If we are to estimate the worth of his acts ac-
cording to this subjective principle, we can ask merely how far he has
embodied the law in his conviction. Thus, if the acts are not to be judged
and measured according to the law, it is not easy to perceive what pur-
pose the law subserves. It is degraded to a mere external letter or empty
word; and inevitably, since it is made a binding law and obligation only
by my conviction.
Such a law may have the authority of God, of the state, and of
centuries, in which it united men and gave substance to their acts and
destiny. It may thus include the convictions of an untold number of
individuals. And yet to it I oppose the authority of my private convic-
tion—a conviction which has no other footing than authority. This, to
all appearance, stupendous presumption is ignored by the principle which
makes subjective conviction to be the rule.
Although reason and conscience, never wholly driven away by shal-
low science and sophistry, with bad logic but a higher insight concede
the possibility of error, they yet reduce crime and evil to a minimum by
calling them errors. To err is human. Who has not often erred with
regard to one thing and another, whether yesterday at dinner he had
fresh or pickled cabbage, and in numberless other things of greater or
less importance? And yet the distinction between important and unim-
portant vanishes, if we cling obstinately to mere subjective conviction.
But the natural, though illogical, admission of the possibility of error,
when it allows that a bad conviction is only an error, is turned into
another defect of logic, that, namely, of dishonesty. At one time it is said
that upon subjective conviction rests the ethical structure and the high-
est worth of man, and this conviction is declared to be most high and
holy. At another time we are dealing with a mere error, and my convic-
tion has become trivial, contingent, and accidental. In point of fact my
conviction is of trifling moment if I cannot know the truth. In such a
The Philosophy of Right/127
case it is also a matter of indifference how I think, and there remains for
my thought merely that empty good, which is an abstraction of the un-
derstanding.
The principle of justification on the ground of conviction bears also
upon others in their treatment of my action. They are quite right to hold
my acts to be crimes, if this is in accordance with their belief and con-
viction. Thus I not only cannot anticipate any favourable treatment,
but, on the contrary, am reduced from a position of freedom and honour
to one of dishonour and slavery. And this happens through that very
justice which I have adopted as my own, by the exercise of which I
experience only an alien subjective conviction, and the working of a
merely external force.
(f) Finally, the highest form in which this subjectivity fully grasps
and expresses itself, is that which we, borrowing the name from Plato,
have called irony. But it is only the name which is taken from Plato,
who, like Socrates, used it in personal conversation against the opinions
of the ordinary and of the sophistic consciousness, in order to bring out
the idea of truth and justice; but in treating the superficial conscious-
ness in this way he expressly excepts the idea. Irony is employed by him
in conversation, only against persons; otherwise the essential movement
of his thought is dialectic. So far was Plato from supposing the conver-
sational process to be complete in itself, or irony to be the idea or ulti-
mate form of thought, that he, on the contrary, terminated the backward
and forward motion of thought, which prevails in subjective opinion, by
sinking it in the substantive idea.
9
The summit of the subjectivity, which apprehends itself as ultimate,
consists in a consciousness of itself as judge of truth, right, and duty. It
is aware, indeed, of the objective ethical principle, but does not forget or
renounce itself, or make any earnest effort to sink itself in this principle
and act from it. Although it is in relation to this principle, it holds itself
free from it, and is conscious of itself as willing and deciding in a cer-
tain way, and as being able quite as well to will and decide otherwise.—
You, let us suppose, honestly take a law to be something absolute; but,
as for me, I too have a share in it, but a much grander one than you, for
I have gone through and beyond it, and can turn it as I please. It is not
the subject-matter which is excellent, but I am the excellent thing, and
am master of law and fact. I toy with them at my pleasure, and can
enjoy myself only when I ironically know and permit the highest to be
submerged. This form, indeed, makes vain the whole ethical content of
128/G. W. F. Hegel
right, duty, and law, being an evil and in itself a wholly universal evil.
Yet to it we must add the subjective vanity of knowing itself as empty of
all content, and yet of knowing this empty self as the absolute.
This absolute self-complacency may in some cases pass beyond a
solitary worship of itself, and frame some kind of community, the bond
and essence of which would be the mutual asseveration of conscien-
tiousness, good intentions, and reciprocal delight in purity. The mem-
bers of this union would disport themselves in the luxury of self-knowl-
edge and self- utterance, and would cherish themselves to their heart’s
content. In those persons, who have been called beautiful souls, we find
even a more sublime subjectivity, making void all that is objective and
shining by the light of its own unreality. These and other phases, which
are in some measure connected with the foregoing forms of subjectivity,
I have treated in the “Phänomenologie des Geistes.” In that work the
whole section on Conscience, especially the paragraphs dealing under a
different heading with the transition into a higher stage, may be com-
pared with the present discussion.
Addition.—Imagination may go further and convert the evil will
into the pretence of the good. Though it cannot alter the substance of
evil, it can lend to it the outer form and semblance of good. Every act
contains something positive, and the demonstration that a thing is good,
as opposed to evil, is effected by eliminating all but this positive. Thus
I can maintain an act to be good in respect of my intention. Moreover,
not only in consciousness, but also on the positive practical side of ac-
tion, evil is connected with good. If self-consciousness gives out that the
act is good only for others, it assumes the form of hypocrisy. But if it
ventures to maintain that the act is good for itself, it rises to the still
higher summit of a subjectivity, which is conscious of itself as absolute.
For it good and evil, as they are in and of themselves, have wholly
disappeared, and it can, therefore, give itself out for what it pleases.
This is the standpoint of absolute sophistry, which itself assumes the
style of lawgiver, and refers the distinction between good and evil to
caprice. Most pronounced in hypocrisy are the religious dissemblers,
the Tartüffes, who perform all kinds of ceremonies, and are in their own
eyes pious, although doing what they please. To- day we seldom speak
of hypocrites, partly because the accusation seems too strong, but also
because hypocrisy in its direct form has disappeared. Direct falsehood
and complete cloaking of the good have become too transparent. Nor is
the total severance of good and evil any longer so simple and available,
The Philosophy of Right/129
since their limits have been made uncertain by growing culture.
The more subtle form of hypocrisy now is that of probability, by
which one seeks to represent a transgression as something good for his
own conscience. This occurs only where morals and the good are fixed
by authority, so that the reasons for maintaining the evil to be the good
are as numerous as the authorities. Casuistic theologians, especially
Jesuits, have worked up these cases of conscience, and multiplied them
ad infinitum. Owing to this over-subtlety, good and evil come into col-
lision, and are subject to such fluctuations that they seem to the indi-
vidual to run into each other. The chief desideratum is only what is
probable, an approximate good, for which a single reason or authority
can be secured. Another peculiarity of this standpoint is that it contains
only what is abstract, while the concrete filling is represented as unes-
sential, or rather is left to mere opinion. Thus anyone may have commit-
ted a crime and yet willed the good. When, for instance, a wicked person
is murdered, the positive side of the act may be asserted to be a desire to
oppose and diminish evil.
The next stage of probability is reached when the subject depends
not upon the authority and assertion of another, but upon himself. He
relies upon his own conviction, and his belief that only through his con-
viction can a thing be good. The defect of this attitude is the determina-
tion to refer to nothing but the conviction itself, involving a rejection of
the substance of absolute right, and a retention of the mere form. It is, of
course, not a matter of indifference whether I do something through use
and wont, or through the force of its truth. Yet objective truth is differ-
ent from my conviction. Conviction holds no distinction at all between
good and evil, for it is always only conviction; the bad would be only
that of which I am not convinced. This highest standpoint, in extin-
guishing good and evil, is admittedly exposed to error, and is cast down
from its high estate to mere contingency and disregard. This is irony, the
consciousness that the highest criterion, the principle of conviction, is
ruled by caprice, and is, therefore, ineffective. For this view the philoso-
phy of Fichte is chiefly responsible, as it claims that the I is absolute. At
least it maintains that absolute certitude marks the general condition of
the I, which by a further development passes into objectivity. Of Fichte,
however, it cannot properly be said that in the practical realm he has
made the caprice of the subject a principle. But after him the particular,
interpreted as the condition of the individual subject, and applied by
Friedrich v. Schlegel to the good and beautiful, has been set up as God.
130/G. W. F. Hegel
Hence the objective good is only an image formed by my conviction,
receiving its substance only through me, and appearing and vanishing at
the pleasure of me, its lord and master. The objective, to which I am
related, is brought to naught, and thus I hover over a dim and monstrous
space, calling up phantoms and dispersing them at will. This last ex-
treme of subjectivity arises only at a time of high culture, where serious
faith has crumbled away, and all things have become vanity.
Transition from Morality to Ethical System.
141. In behalf of conscience, or the mere abstract principle of determi-
nation, it is demanded that its phases shall be universal and objective. In
the same way in behalf of the good which, though it is the essential
universal of freedom, is still abstract, are also required definite phases;
and for these phases is further demanded a principle which must, how-
ever, be identical with the good. The good and conscience, when each is
raised into a separate totality, are void of all definiteness, and yet claim
to be made definite. Still, the construction of these two relative totalities
into an absolute identity is already accomplished in germ, since even the
subjectivity or pure self-certitude, which vanishes by degrees in its own
vacuity, is identical with the abstract universality of the good. But the
concrete identity of the good and the subjective will, the truth of these
two, is completed only in the ethical system.
Note.—A more detailed account of the transition of the conception
is to be found in the “Logic.” Here it is enough to say that the limited
and finite by its very nature contains the opposite in itself. Such a finite
thing is either the abstract good, which is as yet unrealized, or the ab-
stract subjectivity, which is good only in intention. Abstract good im-
plicitly contains its opposite, i.e., its realization, and abstract subjectiv-
ity, or the element in which the ethical is realized, implicitly contains its
opposite, i.e., the good. Thus, when either of these two is taken in a
onesided way, it has not yet positively realized all that it is capable of
being. The good, apart from all subjectivity and definite character, and
the determining subjectivity, apart from anything that it may become,
arrive at a higher actuality by a negative process. Each clings at first to
its one-sided form, and resolves not to accept what it possesses poten-
tially, thus constituting itself an abstract whole. Then it annuls itself in
that capacity, and thereby reduces itself to the level of one element in a
whole. Each of them becomes one element of the conception. The con-
ception, in turn, is manifested as their unity, and, having received reality
The Philosophy of Right/131
through the establishment of its elements, now exists as idea. The idea is
the conception, when it has fashioned its elements into reality, and at the
same time exists in their identity as their dynamic essence.
The simplest realization of freedom is right. When self-conscious-
ness is turned back upon itself, freedom is realized as the good. The
third stage, which is here in its transition exhibited as the truth of the
good and of subjectivity, is likewise quite as much the truth of right. The
ethical is subjective disposition, and yet contains right implicitly. But
that this idea is the truth of the conception of freedom must not be an
assumption derived from such a source as feeling, but must in philoso-
phy be demonstrated. This demonstration is made only when right and
the moral self-consciousness are proved to exhibit of themselves the
tendency to run back into this idea as their result. Those who believe
that proof and demonstration can be dispensed with in philosophy, show
that they are still a long distance from the first thought of what philoso-
phy is. They may speak of other things indeed, but they have no right to
discuss philosophy, if they have not understood the conception.
Addition.—The two principles which we have so far considered,
both the abstract good and conscience, are as yet without their opposing
principles. The abstract good is etherealized into something wholly de-
void of power, something into which I can introduce any content at all.
And the subjectivity of spirit is equally without content, since it has no
objective significance. Hence there may arise a longing after objectivity.
Man would debase himself to the complete dependence of a serf, in
order to escape the torment of sheer inanity and negativity. Many Prot-
estants recently passed over to the Catholic church, simply because they
found no substance in their own inner life. They were willing to accept
any fixed and tangible authority, even though it had not the security
which comes from thought. The social order is the unity, and according
to the conception the reconciliation also of the subjective good with the
objective absolute good. Morality is the general form of the will as sub-
jective; but the ethical order is not simply the subjective form and the
self-determination of the will, but contains their conception, namely,
freedom. Neither right nor morality can exists independently, but must
have the ethical as its pillar and support. In right is wanting the element
of subjectivity, and in morality is wanting the objective, so that neither
by itself has any actuality.
Only the infinite, the idea is actual. Right exists only as a branch of
a whole, or as a vine twining itself about a firmly rooted tree.
132/G. W. F. Hegel
Third Part: The Ethical System.
142. The ethical system is the idea of freedom. It is the living good,
which has in self- consciousness its knowing and willing, and through
the action of self-consciousness its actuality. Self-consciousness, on the
other hand, finds in the ethical system its absolute basis and motive. The
ethical system is thus the conception of freedom developed into a present
world, and also into the nature of self-consciousness.
143. The conception of the will, when united with the realization of
the will, or the particular will, is knowing. Hence arises the conscious-
ness of the distinction between these two phases of the idea. But the
consciousness is now present in such a way that each phase is sepa-
rately the totality of the idea, and has the idea as its content and founda-
tion.
144. The objective ethical principle which takes the place of the
abstract good is in its substance concrete through the presence in it of
subjectivity as its infinite form. Hence it makes differences which are
within itself, and therefore are due to the conception. By means of these
differences, it obtains a sure content, which is independent and neces-
sary, and reaches a standing ground raised above subjective opinion and
liking. This content is the self-originated and self- referring laws and
regulations.
Addition.—In the ethical principle as a whole occur both the objec-
tive and the subjective elements; but of this principle each is only a
form. Here the good is substance, or the filling of the objective with
subjectivity. If we contemplate the social order from the objective stand-
point, we can say that man, as ethical, is unconscious of himself. In this
sense Antigone proclaims that no one knows whence the laws come;
they are everlasting, that is, they exist absolutely, and flow from the
nature of things. None the less has this substantive existence a con-
sciousness also, which, however, is only one element of the whole.
145. The ethical material is rational, because it is the system of
these phases of the idea. Thus freedom, the absolute will, the objective,
and the circle of necessity, are all one principle, whose elements are the
ethical forces. They rule the lives of individuals, and in individuals as
their modes have their shape, manifestation, and actuality.
Addition.—Since the phases of the ethical system are the concep-
tion of freedom, they are the substance or universal essence of individu-
als. In relation to it, individuals are merely accidental. Whether the indi-
The Philosophy of Right/133
vidual exists or not is a matter of indifference to the objective ethical
order, which alone is steadfast. It is the power by which the life of indi-
viduals is ruled. It has been represented by nations as eternal justice, or
as deities who are absolute, in contrast with whom the striving of indi-
viduals is an empty game, like the tossing of the sea.
146. (
b) This ethical reality in its actual self-consciousness knows
itself, and is therefore an object of knowledge. It, with its laws and
forces, has for the subject a real existence, and is in the fullest sense
self-dependent. It has an absolute authority or force, infinitely more
sure than that of natural objects.
Note.—The sun, moon, mountains, rivers, and all objects of nature
doubtless exist. They not only have for consciousness the authority of
existence in general, but have also a particular nature. This nature con-
sciousness regards as valid, and in its varied relation and commerce
with objects and their use comports itself accordingly. But the authority
of the social laws is infinitely higher, because natural things represent
reason only in a quite external and particular way, and hide it under the
guise of contingency.
147. On the other hand, the various social forces are not something
foreign to the subject. His spirit bears witness to them as to his own
being. In them he feels that he is himself, and in them, too, he lives as in
an element indistinguishable from himself. This relation is more direct
and intuitive than even faith or trust.
Note.—Faith and trust belong to the beginning of reflection, pre-
supposing picture thought and such discernment as is implied in the
judgement that to believe in a heathen religion is different from being a
heathen. The relation, or rather identity without relation, in which the
ethical principle is the actual life of self-consciousness, can indeed be
transformed into a relation of faith and conviction. By further reflec-
tion, also, it may pass into an insight based on reasons, which originate
in some particular end, interest, or regard, in fear or hope, or in histori-
cal presuppositions. But the adequate knowledge of these belongs to the
conception arrived at through thought.
148. The individual may distinguish himself from these substantive
ethical factors, regarding himself as subjective, as of himself undeter-
mined, or as determined to some particular course of action. He stands
to them as to his substantive reality, and they are duties binding upon
his will.
Note.—The ethical theory of duties in their objective character is
134/G. W. F. Hegel
not comprised under the empty principle of moral subjectivity, in which,
indeed, nothing is determined (§134), but is rightly taken up in the third
part of oxir work, in which is found a systematic development of the
sphere of ethical necessity. In this present method of treatment, as dis-
tinguished from a theory of duties, the ethical factors are deduced as
necessary relations. It is, then, needless to add, with regard to each of
them, the remark that it is thus for men a duty. A theory of duties, so far
as it is not a philosophic science, simply takes its material out of the
relations at hand, and shows how it is connected with personal ideas,
with widely prevalent principles, and thoughts, with ends, impulses,
and experiences. It may also adduce as reasons the consequences, which
arise when each duty is referred to other ethical relations, as well as to
general well-being and common opinion. But a theory of duties, which
keeps to the logical settlement of its own inherent material, must be the
development of the relations, which are made necessary through the
idea of freedom, and are hence in their entire context actual. This is
found only in the state.
149. A duty or obligation appears as a limitation merely of undeter-
mined subjectivity and abstract freedom, or of the impulse of the natural
will, or of the moral will which fixes upon its undetermined good capri-
ciously. But in point of fact the individual finds in duty liberation. He is
freed from subjection to mere natural impulse; he is freed from the de-
pendence which he as subjective and particular felt towards moral per-
mission and command; he is freed, also, from that indefinite subjectiv-
ity, which does not issue in the objective realization implied in action,
but remains wrapped up in its own unreality. In duty the individual
freely enters upon a liberty that is substantive.
Addition.—Duty limits only the caprice of subjectivity, and comes
into collision only with abstract good, with which subjectivity is so firmly
allied. When men say we will to be free, they have in mind simply that
abstract liberty, of which every definite organization in the state is re-
garded as a limitation. But duty is not a limitation of freedom, but only
of the abstraction of freedom, that is to say, of servitude. In duty we
reach the real essence, and gain positive freedom.
150. The ethical, in so far as it is reflected simply in the natural
character of the individual, is virtue. When it contains nothing more
than conformity to the duties of the sphere to which the individual be-
longs, it is integrity.
Note.—What a man ought to do, or what duties he should fulfil in
The Philosophy of Right/135
order to be virtuous, is in an ethical community not hard to say. He has
to do nothing except what is presented, expressed and recognized in his
established relations. Integrity is the universal trait, which should be
found in his character, partly on legal, partly on ethical grounds. But
from the standpoint of morals a man often looks upon integrity both for
himself and others as secondary and unessential. The longing to be unique
and peculiar is not satisfied with what is absolute and universal, but
only with some situation that is exceptional.
The name “virtue” may quite as well be applied to the different
aspects of integrity, because they, too, although they contain nothing
belonging exclusively to the individual in contrast with others, are yet
his possession. But discourse about the virtues easily passes into mere
declamation, since its subject-matter is abstract and indefinite, and its
reasons and declarations are directed to the individual’s caprice and
subjective inclination. In any present ethical circumstance, whose rela-
tions are fully developed and actualized, virtue in the strict sense has
place and reality only when these relations come into collision. But genu-
ine collisions are rare, although moral reflection can, on the slightest
provocation, create them. It can also provide itself with the conscious-
ness that, in order to fulfil its special mission, it must make sacrifices.
Hence, in undeveloped conditions of social life virtue as such occurs
more frequently, because ethical principles and the realization of them
are more a matter of private liking, belonging indeed to the nature of
peculiarly gifted individuals. Thus, the ancients have attributed virtue
in a special way to Hercules. So, too, in the ancient states, where ethical
principles had not expanded into a system of free self-dependent devel-
opment and objectivity, ethical defects had to be compensated for by the
genius of the private individual. Thus the theory of the virtues, so far as
it differs from a mere theory of duties, embraces the special features of
character due to natural endowments, and thus becomes a spiritual his-
tory of the natural in man.
Since the virtues are the ethical reality applied to the particular, and
are on this subjective side indefinite, there arises, in order to make them
definite, a quantitative distinction of more and less. Hence the consider-
ation of the virtues calls up the opposing vices as defects; Thus Aristotle
defines a particular virtue, when rightly understood, as the mean be-
tween too much and too little.
The content, which receives the form of duties and also of virtues, is
the same as that which has the form of appetites (§19, note). Besides,
136/G. W. F. Hegel
they all have the same content as their basis. But because the content of
the appetites still belongs to unformed will and natural perception, and
is not developed to an ethical order, the only object which they have in
common with the content of duties and virtues is abstract. Since it in
itself is indeterminate, it does not contain for the appetites the limits of
good and evil. Thus appetites, if we consider their positive side, are
good, if their negative side evil (§18).
Addition. If a man realizes this or that social project, he is not at
once virtuous, though such, indeed, he is, when this way of behaving is
a fixed element of his character. Virtue is not wholly objective; it is
rather ethical virtuosity. To-day we do not speak of virtue as formerly,
for the reason that ethical principles are not now so much a feature of a
particular individual. The French speak most of virtue, because amongst
them the individual is more his own peculiar property, and acts accord-
ing to the dictates of nature. The Germans, on the other hand, are more
reflective, and amongst them the same content attains the form of uni-
versality.
151. The ethical, when simply identical with the reality of individu-
als, appears as a generally adopted mode of action, or an observance.
This is the custom, which as a second nature has been substituted for
the original and merely natural will, and has become the very soul, mean-
ing, and reality of one’s daily life. It is the living spirit actualized as a
world; by this actualization does the substance of spirit exist as spirit.
Addition.—As nature has its laws, as the animals, trees, the sun,
fulfil their law, so observance belongs to the spirit of freedom. What
right and morality are not as yet, the ethical principle is, namely, spirit.
The particularity involved is not yet that of the conception, but only of
the natural will. So, too, from the standpoint of morality, self-conscious-
ness is not yet spiritual consciousness. It is occupied simply with the
value of the subject in himself; the subject, who frames himself accord-
ing to the good and against evil, has yet the form of caprice. But, here at
the ethical point of view, will is the will of spirit, and has a correspond-
ingly substantive content. Pedagogy is the art of making men ethical. It
looks upon man as natural, and points out the way in which he is to be
born again. His first nature must be converted into a second spiritual
nature, in such a manner that the spiritual becomes in him a habit. In the
spiritual disposition the opposition of the natural and subjective will
disappears, and the struggle of the subject ceases. To this extent habit
belongs to ethics. It belongs also to philosophic thought, which demands
The Philosophy of Right/137
that the mind should be armed against sallies of caprice, rout and over-
come them, in order that rational thought may nave free course. It is
true, on the other hand, that mere habit causes death, which ensues when
one gets thoroughly used to life, and has become physically and men-
tally dulled. Then the opposition due to subjective consciousness and
spiritual activity has disappeared. Man is active only in so far as he has
not attained something which he desires to effect. When this is fully
accomplished, activity and vitality vanish, and the lack of interest, which
then pervades him, is mental or physical death.
152. Substantive ethical reality attains its right, and this right re-
ceives its due, when the individual in his private will and conscience
drops his self-assertion and antagonism to the ethical. His character,
moulded by ethical principles, takes as its motive the unmoved univer-
sal, which is open on all its sides to actual rationality. He recognizes
that his worth and the stability of his private ends are grounded upon the
universal, and derive their reality from it. Subjectivity is the absolute
form and the existing actuality of the substance. The difference between
the subject and substance, as the object, end, and power of the subject,
forthwith vanishes, like the difference between form and matter.
Note.—Subjectivity, which is the foundation for the real existence
of the conception of freedom (§106), is at the moral standpoint still
distinguished from the conception. In ethics it is adequate to the concep-
tion, whose existence it is.
153. In that individuals belong to the ethical and social fabric they
have a right to determine themselves subjectively and freely. Assurance
of their freedom has its truth in the objectivity of ethical observance, in
which they realize their own peculiar being and inner universality (§147).
Note.—To a father seeking the best way to bring up his son, a
Pythagorean, or some other thinker, replied, “Make him a citizen of a
state which has good laws.”
Addition.—The attempts of speculative educators to withdraw people
from their present social life and bring them up in the country, a pro-
posal made by Rousseau in “Emile,” have been vain, because no one
can succeed in alienating man from the laws of the world. Although the
education of young men must take place in solitude, we cannot believe
that the odour of the world of spirits does not in the end penetrate their
seclusion, or that the power of the spirit of the world is too feeble to take
possession of even the remotest corner. Only when the individual is a
citizen of a good state, does he receive his right.
138/G. W. F. Hegel
154. The right of individuals to their particularity is contained in the
concrete ethical order, because it is in particularity that the social principle
finds a visible outer manifestation.
155. Right and duty coincide in the identity of the universal and the
particular wills. By virtue of the ethical fabric man has rights, so far as he
has duties, and duties so far as he has rights. In abstract right, on the con-
trary, I have the right and another person the corresponding duty; and in
morals I resolve to consider as an objective duty only the right of my own
knowledge and will and of my own well-being.
Addition.—The slave can have no duties, but only the free man. If all
rights were on one side and all duties on the other, the whole would be
broken up. Identity is the only principle to which we must now adhere.
156. The ethical substance, as the union of self-consciousness with its
conception, is the actual spirit of a family and a nation.
Addition.—The ethical framework is not abstract like the good, but in
a special sense real. Spirit has actuality, and the accidents or modes of this
actuality are individuals. Hence as to the ethical there are only two possible
views. Either we start from the substantive social system, or we proceed
atomically and work up from a basis of individuality. This latter method,
because it leads to mere juxtaposition, is void of spirit, since mind or spirit
is not something individual, but the unity of individual and universal.
157. The conception of this idea exists only as spirit, as active self-
knowledge and reality, since it objectifies itself by passing through the form
of its elements. Hence it is,
A. The direct or natural ethical spirit, the family. This reality, losing its
unity, passes over into dismemberment, and assumes the nature of the rela-
tive. It thus becomes
B. The civic community, an association of members or independent
individuals in a formal universality. Such an association is occasioned by
needs, and is preserved by the law, which secures one’s person and prop-
erty, and by an external system for private and common interests.
C. This external state goes back to, and finds its central principle in,
the end and actuality of the substantive universal, and of the public life
dedicated to the maintenance of the universal. This is the state-constitution.
First Section: The Family.
158. The family is the direct substantive reality of spirit. The unity of the
family is one of feeling, the feeling of love. The true disposition here is that
which esteems the unity as absolutely essential, and within it places the
The Philosophy of Right/139
consciousness of oneself as an individuality. Hence, in the family we are
not independent persons but members.
Addition.—Love is in general the consciousness of the unity of myself
with another. I am not separate and isolated, but win my self-consciousness
only by renouncing my independent existence, and by knowing myself as
unity of myself with another and of another with me. But love is feeling,
that is to say, the ethical in the form of the natural. It has no longer a place
in the state, where one knows the unity as law, where, too, the content must
be rational, and I must know it. The first element in love is that I will to be
no longer an independent self-sufficing person, and that, if I were such a
person, I should feel myself lacking and incomplete. The second element is
that I gain myself in another person, in whom I am recognized, as he
again is in me. Hence love is the most tremendous contradiction, inca-
pable of being solved by the understanding. Nothing is more obstinate
than this scrupulosity of self-consciousness, which, though negated, I
yet insist upon as something positive. Love is both the source and solu-
tion of this contradiction. As a solution it is an ethical union.
159. A right, which comes to the individual by reason of the family
and constitutes his life in it, does not appear in the form of a right, that
is, the abstract element of a definite individuality, until the family is
dissolved. Then those, who should be members, become in feeling and
reality self-dependent persons. What was theirs by right of their posi-
tion in the family, they now receive in separation in an external way, in
the form of money, maintenance, or education.
Addition.—The family has this special right, that its substantive
nature should have a sphere in actuality. This right is a right against
external influences and against abandonment of the unity. But, on the
other hand, love is subjective feeling, which, if it oppose the unity of the
family, destroys it. If in such a case a unity is insisted on, it can compre-
hend only things that are external and independent of feeling.
160. The family when completed has the three following Phases:
(a) The form of its direct conception, marriage.
(b) External reality, the family property and goods and the care of
them.
(c) Education of children and dissolution of the family.
140/G. W. F. Hegel
A.
Marriage.
161. Marriage, as the elementary social relation, contains firstly the
factor of natural life. As marriage is also a substantive fact, natural life
must be viewed, in its totality as the realization of the species, and the
process which the realization involves. But, secondly, the merely inner,
potential and, when actualized, external unity of the sexes is transformed
in self-consciousness into the spiritual unity of self-conscious love.
Addition.—Marriage is essentially an ethical relation. Formerly, in
the majority of what are called rights of nature, marriage was inter-
preted on its physical or natural side. It has thus been looked upon sim-
ply as a sexual relation, and as excluding all the other features of mar-
riage. But such a view is no more crude than to conceive of marriage
merely as civil contract, a view found in Kant. In accordance with this
view, individuals form a compact through mere caprice, and marriage is
degraded to a bargain for mutual use. A third doctrine, equally repre-
hensible, bases marriage on love only. Love, which is feeling, admits the
accidental on every side, as the ethical cannot do. Hence, marriage is to
be defined more exactly as legal ethical love. Out of marriage has disap-
peared the love, which is merely subjective.
162. As a subjective starting-point for marriage either the special
inclination of two persons for each other may be the more observable,
or else the provision and general arrangements of the parents. The ob-
jective point of departure, however, is the free consent of the two to
become one person. They give up their natural and private personality
to enter a unity, which may be regarded as a limitation, but, since in it
they attain to a substantive self-consciousness, is really their liberation.
Note.—That an individual may be objective, and so fulfil his ethi-
cal duty, he should marry. The circumstances attending the external
starting-point are naturally a matter of chance, depending largely upon
the state of reflective culture. In this there may be either of two ex-
tremes. Either well-meaning parents arrange beforehand for the mar-
riage of two persons, who, when they have made each other’s acquain-
tance as prospective husband and wife, are then expected to love each
other. Or, on the other hand, inclination is supposed first to appear in
the two persons, left absolutely to their private selves. The extreme, in
which marriage is resolved on prior to inclination, and both resolution
and inclination are then present in the actual marriage, is the more ethi-
cal. In the other extreme, it is the individual’s private and unformed
nature, which makes good its pretensions. This extreme is in close alli-
The Philosophy of Right/141
ance with the subjective principle of the modern world (§124, note).
Modern dramas and other works of art produce an atmosphere of
the chilliest indifference, by the way in which they represent the motive
of sexual love. This feeling of indifference is due to the association in
the drama of ardent passion with the most utter contingency, the whole
interest being made to depend simply upon merely private persons. The
event is, doubtless, of the very last importance to these persons, but not
in itself.
Addition.—Amongst nations where women are held in slight es-
teem, parents arrange the marriage of their children, without ever con-
sulting them. The children submit, because the particularity of feeling
as yet makes no claim at all. The maiden is simply to have a husband,
the man a wife. In other circumstances regard may be had to means,
connections, political hopes. To make marriage the means for other ends
may cause great hardship. But in modern times the subjective point of
departure, i.e., being in love, is thought to be the only thing of conse-
quence. In this it is taken for granted that each one must wait till his
hour has struck, and that he can bestow his love upon one and only one
individual.
163. The ethical side of marriage consists in the consciousness that
the union is a substantive end. Marriage thus rests upon love, confi-
dence, and the socializing of the whole individual existence. In this so-
cial disposition and reality natural impulse is reduced to the mode of a
merely natural element, which is extinguished in the moment of its sat-
isfaction. On the other hand, the spiritual bond of union, when its right
as a substantive fact is recognized, is raised above the chances of pas-
sion and of temporary particular inclination, and is of itself indissoluble.
Note.—It has already been remarked that there is no contract in
connection with the essential character of marriage (§75). Marriage leaves
behind and transcends the standpoint of contract, occupied by the per-
son who is sufficient for himself. Substance is such as to be in essential
relation to its accidents.
10
The union of personalities, whereby the fam-
ily becomes one person, and its members its accidents, is the ethical
spirit. The ethical spirit, stripped of the many external phases which it
has in particular individuals and transitory interests, has been by pic-
ture-thought given independent form, and reverenced as the Penates,
etc. In this attitude of mind is found that religious side of marriage and
the family, which is called piety. It is a further abstraction, when the
divine and substantive reality is separated from its physical embodi-
142/G. W. F. Hegel
ment. The result of this procedure is that feeling and the consciousness
of spiritual unity become what is falsely called Platonic love. This sepa-
ration is in keeping with the monastic doctrine, in which natural vitality
is regarded as negative, and is given by this very separation an infinite
importance.
Addition.—Marriage is distinguished from concubinage, since in
concubinage the chief factor is the satisfaction of natural impulse, while
in marriage this satisfaction is subordinate. Hence, in marriage one speaks
without blushing of occurrences, which apart from the marriage rela-
tion cause a sense of shame. Therefore, also, is marriage to be esteemed
as in itself indissoluble. The end of marriage is ethical, and therefore
occupies so high a place that everything opposing it seems secondary
and powerless. Marriage shall not be liable to dissolution through pas-
sion, since passion is subject to it. But, after all, it is only in itself indis-
soluble, for, as Christ says, divorce is permitted, but only because of
hardness of heart. Marriage, since it contains feeling, is not absolute,
but open to fluctuations, and has in it the possibility of dissolution. Yet
the laws must make the possibility as difficult as can be, and must retain
intact the right of the ethical against inclination.
164. Just as in the case of contract it is the explicit stipulation,
which constitutes the true transference of property (§79), so in the case
of the ethical bond of marriage the public celebration of consent, and
the corresponding recognition and acceptance of it by the family and the
community, constitute its consummation and reality. The function of the
church is a separate feature, which is not to be considered here. Thus
the union is established and completed ethically, only when preceded by
social ceremony, the symbol of language being the most spiritual em-
bodiment of the spiritual (§78). The sensual element pertaining to the
natural life has place in the ethical relation only as an after result and
accident belonging to the external reality of the ethical union. The union
can be expressed fully only in mutual love and assistance.
Note.—When the question as to the chief end of marriage is asked
with a view to enact or recast laws, it means: Which particular side of
the reality of marriage must be accepted as the most essential? But no
one separate phase of marriage comprises the whole range of its abso-
lute ethical content; and one or other phase of its existence may be want-
ing without injury to its essence.—In the celebration of marriage the
essence of the union is clearly understood to be an ethical principle,
freed from theaccidents of feeling and private inclination. If the solem-
The Philosophy of Right/143
nization be taken for an external formality, or a so-called mere civil
requisition, the act loses all purpose except that of edification, or of an
attestation to the civic regulation. Indeed, there may perhaps remain
only the positive arbitrariness of a civil or ecclesiastical command. Now,
not only is a command of this kind indifferent to the nature of marriage,
but in so far as the two persons have because of it ascribed value to the
formality, and counted it as a condition precedent to complete abandon-
ment to each other, it is an alien thing, bringing discord into the disposi-
tion of love, and thwarting the inner nature of the union. The opinion
that the marriage ceremony is a mere civic mandate professes to contain
the loftiest conception of the freedom, intensity, and completeness of
love; but in point of fact it denies the ethical side of it, which implies a
limitation and repression of the mere natural tendency. Reserve is al-
ready found naturally in a sense of shame, and is by the more articulate
spiritual consciousness raised to the higher form of modesty and chas-
tity. In a word, the view of marriage just criticised rejects the ethical
side, by virtue of which consciousness gathers itself out of its native and
subjective condition, and attains to the thought of the substantive. In-
stead of always holding before itself the accidental character of sensual
inclination, it casts off the fetters of this state and engages itself to what
is substantive and binding, namely, the Penates. The sensual [element is
reduced and conditioned by the recognition of marriage as an ethical
bond. Insolent is the view of the mere understanding, which is unable to
apprehend marriage in its speculative nature. This substantive relation,
however, is in harmony with the unsophisticated ethical sense, and with
the laws of Christian nations.
Addition.—It is laid down by Friedrich v. Schlegel, in “Lucinde,”
and by a follower of his in the “Letters of an Unknown” (Lübeck and
Leipzig, 1800), that the marriage-ceremony is a superfluous formality.
They argue that by the form of marriage love, which is the substantive
factor, loses its value; they represent that the abandonment to the sen-
sual is necessary as proof of the freedom and inner reality of love. This
style of argument is usual with seducers. Besides, as regards the rela-
tion of man to woman, it is woman who, in yielding to sense, gives up
her dignity, whereas man has another field than the family for his ethical
activity. The sphere of woman is essentially marriage. Her rightful claim
is that love should assume the form of marriage, and that the different
elements existing in love should be brought into a truly rational connec-
tion.
144/G. W. F. Hegel
165. The natural office of the sexes receives, when rationalized,
intellectual and social significance. This significance is determined by
the distinction which the ethical substance, as conception, introduces by
its own motion into itself, in order to win out of the distinction its own
life or concrete unity.
166. In one sex the spiritual divides itself into two phases, indepen-
dent, personal self- sufficiency, and knowing and willing of free univer-
sality. These two together are the self- consciousness of the conceiving
thought, and the willing of the objective final cause. In the other sex the
spiritual maintains itself in unity and concord. This sex knows and wills
the substantive in the form of concrete individuality and feeling. In rela-
tion to what is without one sex exhibits power and mastery, while the
other is subjective and passive. Hence the husband has his real essential
life in the state, the sciences, and the like, in battle and in struggle with
the outer world and with him. self. Only by effort does he, out of this
disruption of himself, reach self-sufficing concord. A peaceful sense of
this concord, and an ethical existence, which is intuitive and subjective,
he finds in the family. In the family the wife has her full substantive
place, and in the feeling of family piety realizes her ethical disposition.
Note.—Hence piety is in the “Antigone” of Sophocles most superbly
presented as the law of the woman, the law of the nature, which realizes
itself subjectively and intuitively, the law of an inner life, which has not
yet attained complete realization, the law of the ancient gods, and of the
under-world, the eternal law, of whose origin no one knows, in opposi-
tion to the public law of the state. This opposition is in the highest sense
ethical, and hence also tragic; it is individualized in the opposing na-
tures of man and woman.
Addition.—Women can, of course, be educated, but their minds are
not adapted to the higher sciences, philosophy, or certain of the arts.
These demand a universal faculty. Women may have happy inspira-
tions, taste, elegance, but they have not the ideal. The difference be-
tween man and woman is the same as that between animal and plant.
The animal corresponds more closely to the character of the man, the
plant to that of the woman. In woman there is a more peaceful unfolding
of nature, a process, whose principle is the less clearly determined unity
of feeling. If women were to control the government, the state would be
in danger, for they do not act according to the dictates of universality,
but are influenced by accidental inclinations and opinions. The educa-
tion of woman goes on one hardly knows how, in the atmosphere of
The Philosophy of Right/145
picture- thinking, as it were, more through life than through the acquisi-
tion of knowledge. Man attains his position only through stress of thought
and much specialized effort.
167. Marriage in its essence is monogamy, because in this relation
it is the personality, the directly exclusive individuality which subsides
and resigns itself. The true inner side of marriage, the subjective form of
the real substantive institution, issues only out of such a mutual renun-
ciation of personality as is shared in by no one else. Personality acquires
the right of being conscious of itself in another, only in so far as the
other appears in this identity as a person or atomic individuality.
Note.—Marriage, or monogamy, rather, is one of the principles on
which the ethical life of a community depends most absolutely. Hence
the institution of marriage is represented as one of the features of the
divine or heroic founding of the state.
168. Since marriage proceeds out of the free resignation by both
sexes of that personality which is infinitely peculiar to themselves, it
must not occur within the bounds of natural identity, which involves
great intimacy and unlimited familiarity. Within such a circle individu-
als have no exclusive personality. Marriage must rather take place in
families that are unconnected, and between persons who are distinct in
their origin. Between persons related by blood, therefore, marriage is
contrary to the conception of it. It is an ethical act done in freedom, and
not controlled by direct natural conditions and their impulses. Marriage
within these limits is likewise contrary to true natural feeling.
Note.—To regard marriage as grounded not on a right of nature but
on natural sexual impulse, to view it as a capricious contract, to give
such an external reason for monogamy as the number of men in relation
to the number of women, and to give only vague feelings as cause suffi-
cient to prohibit marriage between blood connections, all such theories
are due to the current idea of a state of nature, and to the opinion that
such a state possesses rights. They are, however, devoid of the concep-
tion of rationality and freedom.
Addition.—Consanguineous marriages find opposition, in the first
instance, in the sense of shame. This feeling of hesitation is justified by
the conception. What is already united cannot be first of all united by
marriage. As to the relation of mere nature, it is known that amongst
animals copulation within one stock produces weaker offspring. What
is to be joined ought to be at first distinct and separate. The power of
production, both of spirit and body, is greater, the deeper are the oppo-
146/G. W. F. Hegel
sitions out of which it restores itself. Familiarity, intimacy, habituation
due to the same course of action, ought not to occur previous to mar-
riage, but should be found for the first time in the married state. Their
appearance after marriage has richer results and a higher value, the
more numerous have been the points of difference.
169. The family, as person, has its external reality in property. If it
is to furnish a basis for the substantive personality of the family, it must
take the form of means.
B.
The Family Means.
170. It is not enough that the family has property, but, as a universal
and lasting person, it needs a permanent and sure possession, or means.
When property is treated abstractly, there occur at random the particu-
lar needs of the mere individual, and also the self-seeking of the appe-
tites. These now take on an ethical aspect, and are changed into provi-
sion for a common interest.
Note.—In the wise sayings concerning the founding of states, the
institution of a sure property makes its appearance in connection with
the institution of marriage, or at least with the introduction of an orderly
social life.’— When we come to the civic community, we shall see in
what family competence consists, and how it is to be secured.
171. The husband is the head of the family, and when it, as a legal
person, collides with other families, he is its representative. It is ex-
pected of him, further, to go out and earn its living, care for its needs,
and administer the family means. This means is a common possession,
to which each member has a common but not a special right. This gen-
eral right and the husband’s right to dispose of the property may con-
flict, because the ethical sentiment (§158), which in the family is still in
its simplest form, is subject to chance and violence.
172. Marriage establishes a new family, which has its own indepen-
dent footing as against the stems or houses from which it has proceeded.
The connection of the new family with these stems is consanguinity, but
the principle of the new family is ethical love. Thus, the individual’s
property is essentially allied to his marriage, and less intimately to his
original stock or house.
Note.—A marriage-settlement, which imposes a limit to the com-
mon possession of goods by the wedded couple, or any other arrange-
ment by which the right of the wife is retained, is intended to be security
against the dissolution of the marriage-tie by death or divorce. In such
The Philosophy of Right/147
an event the different members of the family are by this arrangement
apportioned their shares of the common possession.
Addition.—In many law codes the more extended range of the fam-
ily circle is retained. It is looked upon as the real bond of union, while
the tie of the single family is regarded as comparatively unimportant.
Thus in the older Roman law the wife of the lax marriage is more closely
allied to her relatives than to her husband and children. In feudal times,
also, the necessity of preserving the splendor familiae led to reckoning
under the family only its male members. Thus the whole family connec-
tion was the chief object of concern, and the newly- formed family was
placed in the background. Notwithstanding this, every new family is
more essential than the wider circle bounded by the tie of consanguinity.
A married couple with their children form a nucleus of their own in
opposition to the more extended household. Hence the financial status
of individuals must be more vitally connected with marriage than with
the wider family union.
C.
Education of the Children and Dissolution of the Family.
173. The unity of marriage which, as substantive, exists only as an
inner harmony and sentiment, but, so far as it exists actually, is sepa-
rated in the two married persons, becomes in the children a unity, which
has actual independent existence, and is an independent object. This
new object the parents love as an embodiment of their love.— The pre-
supposition of the direct presence of the two people as parents becomes,
when taken on its merely natural side, a result. This process expands
into an infinite series of generations, which beget and are presupposed.
At this finite and natural standpoint the existence of the simple spirit of
the Penates is represented as species or kind.
Addition.—Between husband and wife the relation of love is not yet
objective. Though feeling is a substantive unity, it has as yet no footing
in reality. This foothold parents attain only in their children, in whom
the totality of their alliance is visibly embodied. In the child the mother
loves her husband, and the father his wife. In the child both parents have
their love before their eyes. Whereas in means the marriage tie exists
only in an external object, in children it is present in a spiritual being, in
whom the parents are loved, and whom they love.
174. Children have the right to be supported and educated out of the
common family means. The right of parents to the service of their chil-
dren, as service, is limited to and based upon family cares. The right of
148/G. W. F. Hegel
parents over the free choice of their children is just as clearly limited to
correction and education. The purpose of chastisement is not mere jus-
tice; it has a subjective moral side, its object being to restrain a freedom,
which is still bound to nature, and to instill the universal into the child’s
consciousness and will.
Addition.—Man does not possess by instinct what he is to be, but
must first of all acquire it. Upon this is based the child’s right to be
educated. As it is with children, so is it with nations under paternal
government; the people are supplied with food out of storehouses, and
are not looked upon as self-dependent or of age. The services required
of children must bear upon their education and promote their good. To
ignore this good would destroy the ethical element of the relation, and
make the child a slave. A prominent feature in the education of children
is correction, intended to break their self-will, and eradicate what is
merely sensual and natural. One must not expect to succeed here simply
with goodness, because the direct volition of children is moved by im-
mediate suggestions and likings, not by reasons and ideas. If we give
children reasons, we leave it open to them whether to act upon them or
not. In this way everything depends upon their pleasure. In the fact that
parents constitute the universal and essential is included the necessity of
obedience on the part of children. When no care is taken to cherish in
children the feeling of subordination, a feeling begotten in them by the
longing to be big, they become forward and impertinent.
175. Children are potentially free, and life is the direct embodiment
of this potential freedom. Hence they are not things, and cannot be said
to belong to any one, their parents or others. But their freedom is as yet
only potential. The education of children has with regard to family life a
two-fold object. Its positive aim is to exalt the ethical nature of the child
into a direct perception free from all opposition, and thus secure that
state of mind, which forms the basis of ethical life. The child thus passes
his earlier years in love, trust, and obedience. Its negative aim is to lift
the child out of the natural simplicity, in which it at first is, into self-
dependence and free personality, and thus make it able to leave the natu-
ral unity of the family.
Note.—That the children of Roman parents were slaves is one of
the facts which most tarnishes the Roman law. This wounding of the
ethical life in its most intimate quarter is an important element in form-
ing an estimate of the world-historical character of the Romans, as well
as of their tendency towards formal right.
The Philosophy of Right/149
The necessity for the education of children is found in their inherent
dissatisfaction with what they are, in their impulse to belong to the world
of adults, whom they reverence as higher beings, and in the wish to
become big. The sportive method of teaching gives to children what is
childish under the idea that it is in itself valuable. It makes not only itself
ridiculous, but also all that is serious. It is scorned by children them-
selves. Since it strives to represent children as complete in their very
incompleteness, of which they themselves are already sensible. Hoping
to make them satisfied with their imperfect condition, it disturbs and
taints their own truer and higher aspiration. The result is indifference to
and want of interest in the substantive relations of the spiritual world,
contempt of men, since they have posed before children in a childish and
contemptible way, and vain conceit devoted to the contemplation of its
own excellence.
Addition.—Man, as child, must have been included with his par-
ents in the circle of love and mutual confidence, and the rational must
appear in him as his own most pprivate subjectivity. At the outset the
education given by the mother is of greater importance, since social
character must be planted in the child as feeling. It is noticeable that
children as a rule love their parents less than the parents do their chil-
dren. Children are on the way to meet independence and wax in strength;
besides they have their parents in a sense behind them: but parents pos-
sess in their children the objective embodiment of their union.
176. Marriage is only the direct form of the ethical idea, and has its
objective reality in the inwardness of subjective sentiment and feeling.
In this is found its first exposure to accident. Just as no one may be
forced to marry, so there must be no positive legal bond to hold together
persons, between whom have arisen hostile thoughts and acts. A third
authority must, however, intervene to hold intact the right of marriage
and the right of the ethical fabric against the inroads of mere opinion,
and the accidents of fleeting resolves. It must also distinguish between
the effervescence of feeling and total alienation, and have proof of alien-
ation before permitting divorce.
Addition.—As marriage rests only upon a subjective sentiment which
is liable to change, it may be dissolved. The state, on the contrary, is not
subject to division, since it rests upon the law. Marriage should be indis-
soluble, but this desirable state of things remains a mere moral com-
mand. Yet, since marriage is ethical, it cannot be dissolved at random,
but only by a constituted ethical authority, be it the church or the law. If
150/G. W. F. Hegel
total alienation has taken place on account of adultery, for example,
then the religious authority also must sanction divorce.
177. The ethical or social dismemberment of the family occurs when
the children have grown to be free personalities. They are recognized as
legal persons, when they have attained their majority. They are then
capable both of possessing free property of their own and of founding
their own families, sons as heads of the family, and daughters as wives.
In the new family the founders have now their substantive office, in
contrast with which the first family must occupy a subordinate place as
mere basis and point of departure. The family stock is an abstraction
which has no rights.
178. The natural disruption of the family by the death of the par-
ents, especially of the husband, necessitates inheritance of the family
means. Inheritance is the entering into peculiar possession of the store
that is in itself common. The terms of inheritance depend on degree of
relation and on the extent of the dispersion throughout the community of
the individuals and families, who have broken away from the original
family and become independent. Hence inheritance is indefinite in pro-
portion to the loss of the sense of unity, since every marriage is the
renunciation of former connections, and the founding of a new indepen-
dent family.
Note.—It has been supposed that on the occasion of a death a for-
tune loses its owner, and falls to him who first gets possession of it.
Actual possession, however, so the supposition runs, is generally made
by relatives, since they are usually in the immediate neighbourhood of
the deceased. Hence what customarily happens, is, for the sake of order,
raised by positive law into a rule. This theory is little more than a whim,
and altogether overlooks the nature of the family relation.
179. Through the dismemberment of the family by death there is
afforded free scope for the capricious fancy of the testator, who may
bestow his means in accordance with his personal likings, opinions, and
ends. He may leave his possessions to friends and acquaintances instead
of to the family, adopting the legal mode of bequest by embodying his
declaration in a will.
Note.—Into the formation of a circle of friends by a bequest, which
is authorized by ethical observance, there enters, especially in the case
of wills, so much of arbitrariness, wilfulness, and selfishness, that the
ethical element becomes extremely shadowy. Indeed the legal permis-
sion to be arbitrary in drawing up a will is rather the cause of injury to
The Philosophy of Right/151
ethical institutions and, also, of underhand exertions and servility. It
occasions and justifies the absurd and even malign desire to link to so-
called benefactions and bequests of property, which in any case ceases
at death to be mine, conditions that are vain and vexatious.
180. The principle that the members of a family become indepen-
dent legal persons (§177) allows something of capricious discrimina-
tion with regard to the natural heirs to enter inside even the family circle.
But this discrimination is greatly limited in order not to injure the funda-
mental relation of the family.
Note.—The simple direct freedom of choice of the deceased cannot
be construed as the principle at the basis of the right to make a will.
More particularly is this the case, if this wilfulness is opposed to the
substantive right of the family, whose love and esteem for the deceased
would be the chief reason for carrying out after his death his wayward
behest. Such a will contains nothing so worthy of respect as the family
right. Formerly the validity of a last will and testament lay only in its
arbitrary recognition of others. This validity can be conceded to a testa-
mentary disposition only when the family relation, in which it would
otherwise be absorbed, is weak and ineffective. But to ignore the prov-
ince of the family relation, when it is real and present, is unethical; and
it would also weaken its inherent ethical value to extend the boundaries
of a testator’s caprice.
The harsh and unethical Roman law makes unlimited caprice inside
the family the chief principle of succession, In accordance with this law
the son could be sold by the father, and would, if freed, again come
under his father’s power. Only after being freed from slavery the third
time, was he really free. According to these laws the son did not de jure
come of age, and was not a legal person. Only what he took in war,
peculium castrense, was he entitled to possess. When he, on being three
times sold and freed, passed out of his father’s power, he did not inherit
along with those, who had remained in family servitude, except by the
insertion of a special clause in the will. Similarly, the wife, in so far as
she had entered marriage not as a slave, in manum conveniret, in
mancipio esset, but as a matron, did not so much belong to the family,
which had by her marriage been established, and was actually hers, as
to the family of her birth. Hence she was excluded from inheriting wealth,
which belonged to what was really her own family. Though wife and
mother she was disinherited.
It has already been observed (§3, note) that, as the feeling of ratio-
152/G. W. F. Hegel
nality developed, efforts were made to escape from the unethical ele-
ments of these and other laws. The expression bonorum possessio, which,
as every learned jurist knows, is to be distinguished from possessio
bonorum, was drawn into service by the judges instead of hereditas,
through the employment of a legal fiction, by means of which a filia was
changed by a second baptism into a filius. It thus sometimes became the
sad necessity of the judges slyly to smuggle in the reasonable as an
offset to bad laws. Hence, the most important institutions became piti-
fully unstable, and evils arose, which necessitated in turn a tumultuous
mass of counter legislation.
The unethical results, flowing from the right of free choice allowed
by Roman law to testators, are well known from history and from the
descriptions of Lucian and others. As to marriage it is a direct and simple
ethical relation, and implies a mingling of what is substantive with natu-
ral contingency and inner caprice. By making children slaves, and by
kindred regulations, conspicuously by ready and easy divorce, prefer-
ence is openly conceded to wilfulness over the right of the substantive
ethical fact. Thus Cicero himself, who, in his “Officiis” and other works
has written many a fine thing about the Honestum and Decorum, de-
vised the scheme of sending away his wife in order that he might with a
second wife get a sufficient dowry to pay his debts. When such things
occur, a way is paved by the law for the ruin of morals; or rather the
laws are the necessary product of this ruin and decay.
The institution of heirs-at-law is introduced in order to preserve the
glory of the family stock. It makes use of substitutions and family trusts
by excluding from the inheritance the daughters in favour of the sons, or
the rest of the family in favour of the eldest son, or by sanctioning some
other inequality. By it injustice is done to the principle of freedom of
property (§62). Besides, it rests upon an arbitrary will, which has abso-
lutely no right to be recognized, since it aims to preserve a particular
stock or house rather than a particular family. But the family, and not
the stock or house is the idea, which has the right to be preserved. More-
over, the ethical fabric is as likely to be maintained by the free disposal
of property and equality of succession, as family trees are to be pre-
served by an opposite course.
In institutions like the Roman the right of marriage (§172) is every-
where misinterpreted. Marriage is the complete founding of a new and
actual family, in contrast with which the family, as the stirps or gens is
called, is an abstraction, becoming, as the generations pass by, ever
The Philosophy of Right/153
more shadowy and unreal (§177). Love, the ethical element in marriage,
is a feeling for real present individuals, and not for an abstraction. It is
shown further on (§356) that the world-historical principle of the Ro-
man empire is an abstraction of the understanding. It is also shown
further on (§306) that the higher political sphere introduces a right of
primogeniture and an inalienable family fortune, based, however, not on
an arbitrary act of will, but on the necessary idea of the state.
Addition.—Amongst the Romans in earlier times a father could dis-
inherit his children, and even put them to death. Afterwards neither of
these acts was allowed. Efforts were made to bring both the unethical
and also the illogical attempt to make it ethical into one system, the
retention of which constitutes the difficulty and weakness of our law of
inheritance. Wills may certainly be permitted, but in them should pre-
vail the idea that the right of arbitrary decision grows only with the
dispersion and separation of the members of the family. The so-called
family of friendship, which bequest brings into existence, should appear
only when there are no children or near relatives. Something offensive
and disagreeable is associated with testamentary dispositions generally.
In them I reveal those to whom I have inclination. But inclination is
arbitrary, can be obtained surreptitiously, and is allied to whim and fancy.
It may even be required in a will that an heir shall subject himself to the
greatest indignities. In England, where they are given to riding all sorts
of hobbies, an infinite number of absurdities are attached to wills.
Transition of the Family into the Civic Community.
181. In a natural way and essentially through the principle of personal-
ity, the family separates into a number of families, which then exist as
independent concrete persons, and are therefore related externally to
one another. The elements bound up in the unity of the family, which is
the social idea still in the form of the conception, must now be released
from the conception and given independent reality. This is the stage of
difference. Here, at the outset, to use abstract expressions, we have the
determination of particularity, which is nevertheless in relation to uni-
versality. The universal is, in fact, the basis, which is, however, as yet
only internal, and therefore exists in the particular only formally, and in
it is manifested externally. Hence in this relation occasioned by reflec-
tion the ethical is, as it were, lost; or rather since it, as essence, of neces-
sity appears or is manifested, it occurs in its phenomenal form. This is
the civic community.
154/G. W. F. Hegel
Note.—The extension of the family or the transition of it into an-
other principle has in the actual world two phases. It is on one side the
peaceful expansion of the family into a people or nation, whose compo-
nent parts have a common natural origin. On the other side it is the
collection of scattered groups of families by superior force, or it is their
voluntary association, in order to satisfy by co-operation their common
wants.
Addition.—Universality has here a point of outlet in the indepen-
dence of particularity. At this point the ethical appears to be lost. Con-
sciousness finds in the identity of the family what is properly its first
divine and obligatory principle. But now there appears a relation, in
which the particular is to be the prime factor in determining my con-
duct. Thus the ethical seems to be discarded and superseded. But in this
view I am really in error, for, while I believe myself to be retaining the
particular, the universal and also the necessity of social unity still re-
main for me fundamental and essential. Besides, I am at the stage of
appearance, and although my particular nature remains for me the de-
termining factor and end, I serve in this way the universal, which does
not relax its own special hold of me.
Second Section: The Civic Community.
182. The concrete person, who as particular is an end to himself, is a
totality of wants and a mixture of necessity and caprice. As such he is
one of the principles of the civic community. But the particular person is
essentially connected with others. Hence each establishes and satisfies
himself by means of others, and so must call in the assistance of the
form of universality. This universality is the other principle of the civic
community.
Addition.—The civic community is the realm of difference, inter-
mediate between the family and the state, although its construction fol-
lowed in point of time the construction of the state. It, as the difference,
must presuppose the state. On the self-dependent state it must rely for
its subsistence. Further, the creation of the civic community belongs to
the modern world which alone has permitted every element of the idea to
receive its due. When the state is represented as a union of different
persons, that is, a unity which is merely a community, it is only the civic
community which is meant. Many modern teachers of political science
have not been able to develop any other view of the state. In this society
every one is an end to himself; all others are for him nothing. And yet
The Philosophy of Right/155
without coming into relation with others he cannot realize his ends. Hence
to each particular person others are a means to the attainment of his end.
But the particular purpose gives itself through reference to others the
form of universality, and in satisfying itself accomplishes at the same
time the well-being of others. Since particularity is bound up with the
conditioning universal, the joint whole is the ground of adjustment or
mediation, upon which all individualities, all talents, all accidents of
birth or fortune disport themselves. Here the fountains of all the pas-
sions are let loose, being merely governed by the sun of reason. Par-
ticularity limited by universality is the only standard to which the par-
ticular person conforms in promoting his well-being.
183. The self-seeking end is conditioned in its realization by the
universal. Hence is formed a system of mutual dependence, a system
which interweaves the subsistence, happiness, and rights of the indi-
vidual with the subsistence, happiness, and right of all. The general
right and well- being form the basis of the individual’s right and well-
being, which only by this connection receives actuality and security.
This system we may in the first instance call the external state, the state
which satisfies one’s needs, and meets the requirements of the under-
standing.
184. When the idea is thus at variance with itself, it imparts to the
phases of the peculiarly individual life, i.e., to particularity, the right to
develop and publish themselves on all sides, and to universality it con-
cedes the right to evince itself as the foundation and necessary form,
overruling power and final end of the particular. In this system the ethi-
cal order is lost in its own extremes. It is a system characterized by
external appearance and constituted by the abstract side of the reality of
the idea. In it the idea is found only as relative totality, and inner neces-
sity.
Addition.—The direct unity of the family is here broken up into a
multiplicity, and the ethical is lost in its extremes. Reality is at this stage
externality, involving the dissolution of the conception, the liberation
and independence of its realized elements. Although in the civic com-
munity particular and universal fall apart, they are none the less mutu-
ally connected and conditioned. While the one seems to be just the oppo-
site of the other, and is supposed to be able to exist only by keeping the
other at arm’s length, each nevertheless has the other as a condition.
Thus most people, for example, regard the payment of taxes as injuring
their particularity, and as opposing and crippling their plans. True as
156/G. W. F. Hegel
this may seem to be, the particular purpose cannot be carried out apart
from the universal. A land, in which no taxes were paid, would not be
allowed to distinguish itself for the strength of its individuals. In the
same way it might appear as if it would be better for the universal to
draw to itself the resources of the individual, and become a society such
as was delineated by Plato in his “Republic.” But this, too, is only a
mere appearance, since both elements exist only through and for each
other, and are wrapped up in each other. When I promote my end, I
promote the universal, and the universal in turn promotes my end.
185. When independent particularity gives free rein to the satisfac-
tion of want, caprice, and subjective liking, it destroys in its extrava-
gance both itself and its substantive conception. On the other hand the
satisfaction whether of necessary or of contingent want is contingent,
since it contains no inherent limit, and is wholly dependent on external
chance, caprice, and the power of the universal. In these conflicts and
complexities the civic community affords a spectacle of excess, misery,
and physical and social corruption.
Note.—The independent development of particularity (compare
§124, note), is the element which was revealed in the ancient states as
an inflow of immorality causing ultimately their decay. These states,
founded as they were partly upon a patriarchal and religious principle,
partly upon a spiritual though simple ethical life, and originating in
general in native intuitions, could not withstand the disunion and infi-
nite reflection involved in self-consciousness. Hence, so soon as reflec-
tion arose, the state succumbed, first in sentiment and then in fact. Its as
yet simple principle lacked the truly infinite power implied in a unity,
which permits the opposition to reason to explode with all its force. In
this way it would rise superior to the opposition, preserve itself in it, and
take it into itself.
Plato in his “Republic” represents the substantive ethical life in its
ideal beauty and truth. But with the principle of independent particular-
ity, which broke in upon Grreek ethical life at his time, he could do
nothing except to oppose to it his “Republic,” which is simply substan-
tive. Hence he excluded even the earliest form of subjectivity, as it exists
in private property (§46, note) and the family, and also in its more ex-
panded form as private liberty and choice of profession. It is this defect,
which prevents the large and substantive truth of the “Republic” from
being understood, and gives rise to the generally accepted view that it is
a mere dream of abstract thought, or what we are used to calling an
The Philosophy of Right/157
ideal. In the merely substantive form of the actual spirit, as it appears in
Plato, the principle of self-dependent and in itself infinite personality of
the individual, the principle of subjective freedom does not receive its
due. This principle on its inner side issues in the Christian religion, and
on its outer side in the Roman world, where it was combined with ab-
stract universality. It is historically later than the Greek world. So, too,
the philosophic reflection, which fathoms the depth of this principle, is
later than the substantive idea found in Greek thought.
Addition.—Particularity, taken abstractly, is measureless in its ex-
cess, and the forms of excess are likewise measureless. A man’s appe-
tites, which are not a closed circle like the instinct of the animal, are
widened by picture-thought and reflection. He may carry appetite even
to the spurious infinite. But on the other side privation and want are also
measureless. The confusion, due to the collision of appetite and priva-
tion, can only be set to rights by the state. If the Platonic state excludes
particularity, no hope can be held out to it, as it contradicts the infinite
right of the idea to allow to particularity its freedom. In the Christian
religion, the right of subjects and also the existence, which is self-refer-
ring and self-dependent, have received a marked expansion. And at the
same time the whole is sufficiently strong to establish harmony between
particularity and the ethical unity.
186. But the principle of particularity develops of its own accord
into a totality, and thus goes over into universality. In this universality it
has its truth and its right to positive realization. Since at the standpoint
of dualism, which we now occupy (§184), the principles of particularity
and universality are independent, their unity is not an ethical identity. It
does not exist as freedom, but as a necessity. That is to say the particu-
lar has to raise itself to the form of universality, and in it it has to seek
and find its subsistence.
187. Individuals in the civic community are private persons, who
pursue their own interests. As these interests are occasioned by the uni-
versal, which appears as a means, they can be obtained only in so far as
individuals in their desire, will, and conduct, conform to the universal,
and become a link in the chain of the whole. The interest of the idea as
such does not, it is true, lie in the consciousness of the citizens; yet it is
not wholly wanting. It is found in the process, by means of which the
individual, through necessity of nature and the caprice of his wants,
seeks to raise his individual natural existence into formal freedom and
the formal universality of knowing and willing. Thus, without departing
158/G. W. F. Hegel
from its particular nature, the individual’s character is enlarged.
Note.—The view that civilization is an external and degenerate form
of life is allied to the idea that the natural condition of uncivilized peoples
is one of unsophisticated innocence. So also the view that civilization is
a mere means for the satisfaction of one’s needs, and for the enjoyment
and comfort of one’s particular life, takes for granted that these selfish
ends are absolute. Both theories manifest ignorance of the nature of
spirit and the end of reason. Spirit is real only when by its own motion
it divides itself, gives itself limit and finitude in the natural needs and the
region of external necessity, and then, by moulding and shaping itself in
them, overcomes them, and secures for itself an objective embodiment.
The rational end, therefore, is neither the simplicity of nature nor the
enjoyments resulting from civilization through the development of par-
ticularity. It rather works away from the condition of simple nature, in
which there is either no self or a crude state of consciousness and will,
and transcends the naive individuality, in which spirit is submerged. Its
externality thus in the first instance receives the rationality, of which it
is capable, namely, the form of universality characteristic of the under-
standing. Only in this way is spirit at home and with itself in this exter-
nality as such. Hence in it the freedom of spirit is realized. Spirit, be-
coming actualized in an element, which of itself was foreign to its free
character, has to do only with what is produced by itself and bears its
own impress.—In this way the form of universality comes into indepen-
dent existence in thought, a form which is the only worthy element for
the existence of the idea.
Culture or education is, as we may thus conclude, in its ultimate
sense a liberation, and that of a high kind. Its task is to make possible
the infinitely subjective substantiality of the ethical life. In the process
we pass upwards from the direct and natural existence to what is spiri-
tual and has the form of the universal.—In the individual agent this
liberation involves a struggle against mere subjectivity, immediate de-
sire, subjective vanity, and capricious liking. The hardness of the task is
in part the cause of the disfavour under which it falls. None the less is it
through the labour of education that the subjective will itself wins pos-
session of the objectivity, in which alone it is able and worthy to be the
embodiment of the idea.— At the same time the form of universality,
into which particularity has moulded itself and worked itself up, gives
rise to that general principle of the understanding, in accordance with
which the particular passes upward into the true, independent existence
The Philosophy of Right/159
of the individual. And since the particular gives to the universal its ad-
equate content and unconditioned self-direction, it even in the ethical
sphere is infinitely independent and free subjectivity. Education is thus
proved to be an inherent element of the absolute, and is shown to have
infinite value.
Addition.—We call those men educated or cultured, who can per-
form all that others do without exhibiting any oddities of behaviour.
Uneducated men thrust their eccentricities upon your notice, and do not
act according to the universal qualities of the object. It easily happens
that the uneducated man wounds the feelings of others, since he lets
himself go, and does not trouble himself about their sensibilities. Not
that he desires to injure them at all, but his conduct is not in unison with
his will. Education refines particularity, and enables it to conduct itself
in harmony with the nature of the object. True originality, which creates
its object, desires true culture, while untrue originality adopts insipidities,
which are characteristic of a lack of culture.
188. The civic community contains three elements:
A. The recasting of want, and the satisfaction of the individual
through his work, through the work of all others, and through the satis-
faction of their wants. This is a system of wants.
B. Actualization of the general freedom required for this, i.e., the
protection of property by the administration of justice.
C. Provision against possible mischances, and care for the particu-
lar interest as a common interest, by means of police and the corpora-
tion.
A.
The System of Wants.
189. The particularity, which is in the first instance opposed to the uni-
versal will (§60), is subjective want. It gets objectivity, i.e., is satisfied
(
a), through external objects, which are at this stage the property of
others, and the product of their needs and wills, and (
b) through active
labour, as connecting link between subjective and objective. Labour has
as its aim to satisfy subjective particularity. Yet by the introduction of
the needs and free choice of others universality is realized. Hence ratio-
nality comes as an appearance into the sphere of the finite. This partial
presence of rationality is the understanding, to which is assigned the
function of reconciling the opposing elements of the finite sphere.
Note.—It is the task of political science, which originates at this
point, to detect the laws governing the movement of the masses in the
160/G. W. F. Hegel
intricacy of their qualitative and quantitative relations. This science has
sprung from the soil of modern times. Its development reveals the inter-
esting process by which thought (see Smith, Say, Ricardo) examines the
infinite multitude of particulars lying before it, and exposes their simple,
active, regulating principles. These principles belong to the understand-
ing. As on the one side the principle of reconciliation involves a recog-
nition of the external presence or appearance in the sphere of want of
the reason which is active in the object; so, on the exact contrary, is this
also the sphere in which the understanding with its subjective aims and
moral opinions lets loose its discontent and moral vexation.
Addition.—It depends altogether on accident how such universal
wants, as those of food, drink, and clothing, are to be satisfied. The soil
is more fertile in one place than another; years differ in their yield; one
man is diligent, while another is lazy. But this swarm of arbitrary things
begets universal features, and what appears to be pure abstraction and
absence of thought becomes bound by a necessity, which enters of itself.
To discover the element of necessity is the object of political science, a
science which does honour to thought, because it finds laws in a mass of
accidents. Interesting is it to witness the action and reaction of the dif-
ferent relations, how the special circles group themselves, influence oth-
ers, and in turn receive from them, help or hindrance. So remarkable is
this interpretation of facts in a sphere, where everything seems to be
postponed to the free will of the individual, that it almost passes belief.
It resembles the planets, which though to the eye always complex and
irregular in their movements, are yet governed by ascertained laws.
(a) Want and its Satisfaction.
190. The animal has a limited range of ways and means for satisfying
his limited wants. Man in his dependence proves his universality and his
ability to become independent, firstly, by multiplying his wants and
means, and, secondly, by dissecting the concrete want into parts. The
parts then become other wants, and through being specialized are more
abstract than the first.
Note.—The object is in right a person, in morals a subject, in the
family a member, in the city generally a burgher (bourgeois); and here,
at the standpoint of want (§123, note), he is the concrete product of
picture-thought which we call man. Here, and properly only here, is it
that we first speak of man in this sense.
Addition.—The animal is particular in its being, having instinct,
The Philosophy of Right/161
and a strictly limited means of satisfaction. Some insects are confined to
a certain kind of plant; other animals have a wider circle and can inhabit
different climates, but still their range is limited in contrast with that of
man. Man’s need of shelter and clothing, his having to destroy the natu-
ral form of food, and adapt it by cooking to his changed taste, give him
less aplomb than the animal. Indeed, as spirit, he ought to have less. The
understanding, with its grasp of differences, brings multiplicity into
wants: and, when taste and utility become criteria of judgment, they
change even the wants themselves. It is in the end not the appetite, but
the opinion which has to be satisfied. It is the province of education or
culture to dissect the concrete need into its elements. When wants are
multiplied, the mere appetites are re-stricted; for, when man uses many
things, the propulsion to any one of them is not so strong, a sign that the
force of physical need in general is diminished.
191. The means for satisfying the specialized wants are similarly
divided and increased. These means become in their turn relative ends
and abstract wants. Hence the multiplication expands into an infinite
series of distinctions with regard to these phases, and of judgments con-
cerning the suitability of the means to their ends. This is refinement.
Addition.—What the English call “comfortable” is something end-
less and inexhaustible. Every condition of comfort reveals in turn its
discomfort, and these discoveries cro on for ever. Hence the new want is
not so much a want of those who have it directly, but is created by those
who hope to make profit from it.
192. The satisfaction of want and the attainment of means thereto
become a realized possibility for others, through whose wants and labour
satisfaction is in turn conditioned. The abstraction, which becomes a
quality of wants and means (§191), helps to determine the mutual rela-
tion of individuals. This general recognition of others is the element
which makes the isolated abstract wants and means concrete and social.
Addition.—Through the compulsion I am under to fashion myself
according to others arises the form of universality. I acquire from others
the means of satisfaction, and must accordingly fall in with their opin-
ions. At the same time I am compelled to produce the means for the
satisfaction of the wants of others. One plays into the other; and the two
are interdependent. Everything particular becomes in this way social. In
the matter of dress, time of eating, etc., we follow convention, because it
is not worth while exercising our insight and judgment. He is the most
prudent who does as others do.
162/G. W. F. Hegel
193. The social element is a special instrument both of the simple
acquisition of the means, and also of the reduplication of the ways by
which want is satisfied. Further, it contains directly the claim of equal-
ity with others. Both the desire for equality, including the imitation of
others, and also the desire of each person to be unique, become real
sources of the multiplication and extension of wants.
194. Social want joins the direct or natural want with the spiritual want
due to picture-thinking; but the spiritual or universal factor outweighs the
other. The social element brings a liberation, by which the stringent neces-
sity of nature is turned aside, and man is determined by his own universal
opinion. He makes his own necessity. He has arbitrary choice, being in
contact with a contingency which is not external but internal.
Note.—It has been held that man as to want is free in a so-called state
of nature, in which he has only the so-called simple wants of nature, requir-
ing for their satisfaction merely the means furnished directly and at random
by nature. In this view no account is taken of the freedom which lies in
work, of which more hereafter. Such a view is not true, because in natural
want and its direct satisfaction the spiritual is submerged by mere nature.
Hence, a state of nature is a state of savagery and slavery. Freedom is
nowhere to be found except in the return of spirit and thought to itself, a
process by which it distinguishes itself from the natural and turns back
upon it.
195. This liberation is formal, since the particular side of the end re-
mains the fundamental content. The tendency of the social condition indefi-
nitely to increase and specialize wants, means, and enjoyments, and to dis-
tinguish natural from unrefined wants, has no limits. Hence arises luxury,
in which the augmentation of dependence and distress is in its nature infi-
nite. It operates upon an infinitely unyielding material, namely, an external
means, which has the special quality of being the possession of the free will.
Hence it meets with the most obdurate resistance.
Addition.—Diogenes in his completely cynical character is prop-
erly only a product of Athenian social life. That which gave birth to him
was the public opinion, against which his behaviour was directed. His
way of therefore not independent, but occasioned by his social surround-
ings. It was itself an ungainly product of luxury. Wherever luxury is
extreme, there also prevail distress and depravity, and cynicism is pro-
duced in opposition to over-refinement.
The Philosophy of Right/163
(b) Labour.
196. The instrument for preparing and acquiring specialized means ad-
equate to specialized wants is labour. By labour the material, directly
handed over by nature for these numerous ends, is specialized in a vari-
ety of ways. This fashioning of the material gives to the means value
and purpose, so that in consumption it is chiefly human products and
human effort that are used up.
Addition.—The direct material, which requires no working up, is
small. Even air must be acquired, since it has to be made warm. Perhaps
water is the only thing which man can use, simply as it is. Human sweat
and toil win for men the means for satisfying their wants.
197. Training on its theoretical side is developed by the great vari-
ety of objects and interests, and consists not only in numberless picture-
thoughts and items of knowledge, but also in mobility and quickness of
imagination, a mental alertness in passing from one image, or idea, to
another, and in the apprehension of intricate general relations. This is
the training of the understanding, with which goes the development of
language. Practical training, or training by labour, consists in habitua-
tion to an employment, which satisfies a self-caused want. Its action is
limited partly by the nature of the material, but chiefly by the caprice of
others. It involves an habitual use of skill acquired by practice and im-
plying objective conditions.
Addition.—-The barbarian is lazy, and is distinguished from the
civilized man by his brooding stupidity. Practical training consists in
habitual employment and the need of of it. The unskilled workman al-
ways makes something different from what he intended, because he is
not master of his own hands. A workman is skilled, who produces what
he intended, whose subjective action readily accords with his purpose.
198. The universal and objective in work is to be found in the ab-
straction which, giving rise to the specialization of means and wants,
causes the specialization also of production. This is the division of labour.
By it the labour of the individual becomes more simple, his skill in his
abstract work greater, and the amount he produces larger. The result of
the abstraction of skill and means is that men’s interdependence or mu-
tual relation is completed. It becomes a thorough necessity. Moreover,
the abstraction of production causes work to be continually more me-
chanical, until it is at last possible for man to step out and let the ma-
chine take his place.
164/G. W. F. Hegel
(c) Wealth.
199. Through the dependence and co-operation involved in labour, sub-
jective self-seeking is converted into a contribution towards the satis-
faction of the wants of all others. The universal so penetrates the par-
ticular by its dialectic movement, that the individual, while acquiring,
producing, and enjoying for himself, at the same time produces and
acquires for the enjoyment of others. This is a necessity, and in this
necessity arising out of mutual dependence is contained the fact of a
general and permanent wealth (§170). In it each person may share by
means of his education and skill. Each, too, is by it assured of subsis-
tence, while the results of his labour preserve and increase the general
wealth.
200. But particular wealth, or the possibility of sharing in the gen-
eral wealth, is based partly on skill, partly on something which is di-
rectly the individual’s own, namely, capital. Skill in its turn depends on
capital, and on many accidental circumstances. These also in their mani-
fold variety make more pronounced the differences in the development
of natural endowments, physical and mental, which were unequal to
begin with. These differences are conspicuous everywhere in the sphere
of particularity. They, along with other elements of chance and acci-
dent, necessarily produce inequalities of wealth and skill.
Note.—Nature is the element of inequality. Yet the objective right of
particularity of spirit, contained in the idea itself, does not in the civic
community supersede the inequality set up by nature. On the contrary, it
produces inequality out of spirit and exalts it to an inequality of talents,
wealth, and intellectual and moral education. To oppose to the objective
right a demand for equality is a move of the empty understanding, which
takes its own abstraction and mandate to be real and reasonable. In the
sphere of particularity the universal images itself, forming with the par-
ticular merely a relative identity. The particular thus retains both the
natural and the capricious particularity, and also a remnant of the state
of nature. It is the reason immanent in the system of human wants and
their activities, which fashions this system into an organic whole, of
which the differences are members. (See next §.)
201. The infinitely varied means and their infinitely interlacing play
of mutual production and exchange are gathered together by virtue of
the universality inherent in their content, and become divided into gen-
eral masses. The whole is thus formed into particular systems of wants,
means, and labour, ways and methods of satisfaction, and theoretical
The Philosophy of Right/165
and practical training. Amongst these systems the individuals are ap-
portioned, and compose a cluster of classes or estates.
Addition.—The manner of sharing in the general wealth is left to
each particular individual, but the general differences, found in the divi-
sion of the civic community, are essential. The family is the first basis of
the state, and classes or estates are the second. This second is of conse-
quence because private persons, through self-seeking, are compelled to
turn themselves out towards others. This is the link by which self-seek-
ing is joined to the universal or the state, whose care it must be to keep
the connection strong and steadfast.
202. Classes are, in terms of the conception, (a) the substantial or
direct, (b) the reflecting or formal, and (c) the universal.
203. (a) The wealth of the substantial class is contained in natural
products obtained by cultivation. The soil is capable of being an exclu-
sive, private possession, and demands not merely the taking from it
what it bears naturally, but an objective working up. Since the returns
of labour depend on the seasons, and harvests are influenced by vari-
able weather and other natural conditions, provision for wants must
take account of the future. However, owing to the natural conditions,
this way of life involves but little reflection, and is but slightly modified
by subjective volition. It therefore embodies in substantive feeling an
ethical life resting directly upon trust and the family relation.
Note.—States are rightly said to come into existence with the intro-
duction of agriculture along with the introduction of marriage. The prin-
ciple of agriculture involves the cultivation of the soil, and therefore,
also, private ownership of property (compare §170, note). It takes the
life of nomadic tribes back to the repose of private right and to the
secure satisfaction of wants. Joined also to the agricultural life are the
limitation of sexual love to marriage, the extension of this bond to an
enduring universal relation, the extension of want to family maintenance
and of possession to family wealth. Safety, protection by fortification,
and uninterrupted satisfaction of wants are all commendable prima fa-
cie characteristics of these two fundamental ethical institutions. They
are forms of universality, or ways by which reason or the absolute end
seeks to realize itself. In this connection nothing can be more interesting
than the ingenious and learned explanations which my much honoured
friend, Mr. Creuzer, has given in the fourth volume of his “Mythologie
und Symbolik” with regard to the agrarian festivals, images, and sanc-
tuaries of the ancients. In these customs and rites the introduction of
166/G. W. F. Hegel
agriculture and kindred institutions was known and revered as a divine
act.
From the side of private-right, especially the administration of jus-
tice, and from the side of instruction, culture, and also of religion, the
substantive character of this class undergoes modifications. These modi-
fications, however, are due to the development of reflection, and affect
not the substantive content but the form.—They occur also in the other
classes.
Addition.—In our time agriculture, losing some of its naturalness,
is managed in a reflective way like a factory, and acquires the character
of the second class. Tet it will always retain much of the substantive
feeling, which pervades the patriarchal life. In it man accepts what is
given with a simple mind, thanks God for it, and lives in the assurance
that the goodness of Grod will continue. What he gets suffices him, and
he uses it because it comes again. This is the simple disposition unaf-
fected by the desire for wealth. It may be described as the type of the old
nobility, who consumed simply what was there. In this class na,ture
does the chief share of the work, and man’s diligence is in comparison
secondary. In the second class the understanding is the essential factor,
and the natural products are regarded simply as furnishing material.
204. (b) The business of the industrial class is to alter the form of
the products of nature. This class is indebted for its subsistence to its
labour, to reflection, and also to the interposition of the wants and labours
of others. For that which it produces and enjoys it has to thank mainly
its own activity.—Its field of action is again divided into three parts:—
(i.) Labour for individual wants of the more concrete kind, and at the
request of particular persons. This is manual labour, or the work of
single artisans, (ii.) The more abstract collective mass of labour, which
is also for particular needs but due to a general demand. This is manu-
facture, (iii.) Business of exchange, by which one special means of sub-
sistence is given for others, chiefly through money, the general medium
of exchange, in which is realized the abstract value of all merchandise.
This is commerce.
Addition.—The individual in the industrial class is referred to him-
self, and this self-reference is intimately connected with the demand for
a legal status. Consequently the sense for freedom and order has mainly
arisen in cities. The first class needs to think little about itself. What it
acquires is the gift of a stranger, nature. With it the feeling of depen-
dence is primary. With this feeling is easily associated a willingness to
The Philosophy of Right/167
submit to whatever occurs. The first class is therefore more inclined to
subjection, the second to freedom.
205 (c) The business of the universal class is with the universal
interests of society. Hence it must be relieved, of the direct task of pro-
viding for itself. It must possess private means, or receive an allowance
from the state, which claims his activity. His private interest may thus
find satisfaction in his labour for the universal.
206. A class is a particularity which has become objective, and the
foregoing are the general divisions in accordance with the conception.
Yet capacity, birth, and other circumstances have their influence in de-
termining to what class an individual shall belong. But the final and
essential factor in the case is subjective opinion and private freedom of
choice. In this sphere free choice has its right, honour, and dignity. If a
thing happens in this sphere according to internal necessity, it is ipso
facto occasioned by free arbitrary choice, and for the subjective con-
sciousness bears the stamp of its will.
Note.—In reference to the principle of particularity or subjective
caprice may be clearly discerned the difference between the political life
of the East and that of the West, between the ancient and the modern
world. In the ancient world the division of the whole into classes was
produced objectively of itself, because it is implicitly rational. But the
principle of subjectivity does not receive its due, since the separation of
individuals into classes is either a function of the rulers, as in Plato’s
“Republic” (Rep. iii. 120), or else it rests upon mere birth, as in the
caste system of India. Now subjective particularity is an essential ele-
ment of communal life, and, when it is not taken up into the organiza-
tion of the whole and reconciled in the whole, it must prove a hostile
force and pave the way for the ruin of the social order (see §185, note).
It either overturns society, as was the case in the Greek states and the
Roman republic, or, when the existing order is able to preserve itself by
force or by religious authority, it then manifests itself as internal cor-
ruption and complete degradation. This happened in a measure amongst
the Lacedemonians, and now is completely the case with the inhabitants
of India.
But when subjective particularity is welcomed by objective order,
and given its rights and place, it becomes the animating principle of the
civic community, stimulates thought and promotes merit and honour.
The recognition of the claim that whatever in the civic community and
the state is rationally necessary should occur through subjective free
168/G. W. F. Hegel
choice is a fuller definition of the popular idea of freedom (§121).
207. The particularity of the individual becomes definitely and ac-
tually realized, only by his limiting himself exclusively to one of the
particular spheres of want. In this system the ethical sense is that of
rectitude or class-honour. It involves the decision of the individual by
means of his own native activity, diligence, and skill to make himself a
member of one of these classes, preserve himself in it, and provide for
himself only through the instrumentality of the universal. He should
acknowledge this position, and also claim to have it recognized by oth-
ers.—Morality has its peculiar place in this sphere, where the ruling
factor is reflection upon one’s action, or consideration of the end in-
volved in particular wants and in well-being. Here also the element of
chance in satisfying these ends makes random and individual assistance
a duty.
Note.—Youth is specially apt to struggle against the proposal that
it should decide upon a particular vocation, on the ground that any deci-
sion is a limitation of its universal scope and a mere external necessity.
This aloofness is a product of the abstract thinking, which clings to the
universal and unreal. It fails to recognize that the conception must expe-
rience a division into conception and its reality, if it is to have a definite
and particular realization (§7), and to win for itself reality and ethical
objectivity.
Addition.—By the sentence that a man must be something we un-
derstand that he must belong to a definite class; for this something sig-
nifies a substantive reality. A human being without a vocation is a mere
private person, who has no place in any real universal. Still, the indi-
vidual in his exclusiveness may regard himself as the universal, and
may fancy that when he takes a trade or profession, he is sinking to a
lower plane. That is the false notion that a thing, when it attains the
realization which properly belongs to it, limits itself and gives up its
independence.
208. The principle of the system of wants, namely the particularity
of knowing and willing, contains absolute universality, or the universal-
ity of freedom, only in the abstract form of right of property. But here
right is no longer merely implicit, but is found in valid reality as protec-
tion of property through the administration of justice.
The Philosophy of Right/169
B.
Administration of Justice.
209. The relative principle of the mutual exchange of wants and labour
for their satisfaction has in the first instance its return into itself in the
infinite personality generally, i.e., in abstract right. Yet it is the very
sphere of the relative which in the form of education gives embodiment
to right, by fixing it as something universally acknowledged, known,
and willed. The relative also, through the interposition of knowledge
and will, supplies right with validity and objective actuality.
Note.—It is the essence of education and of thought, which is the
consciousness of the individual in universal form, that the I should be
apprehended as a universal person, in whom all are identical. Man must
be accounted a universal being, not because he is a Jew, Catholic, Prot-
estant, German, or Italian, but because he is a man. This thinking or
reflective consciousness, is of infinite importance. It is defective only
when it plumes itself upon being cosmopolitan, in opposition to the con-
crete life of the citizen.
Addition.—From one point of view it is by means of the system of
particularity that right becomes externally necessary as protection of
individuals. Although right proceeds out of the conception, it enters into
being only because it is serviceable for wants. To have the thought of
right, one must be educated to the stage of thinking, and not linger in the
region of the merely sensible. We must adapt the form of universality to
the objects, and direct the will according to a universal principle. Only
after man has found out for himself many wants, the acquisition of which
is an inseparable element of his satisfaction, is he able to frame laws.
210. The objective actuality of right consists partly in existing for
consciousness, or more generally in its being known, and partly in hav-
ing, and being generally recognized as having, the validity and force of
a reality.
(a) Right as Law.
211. What is in essence right becomes in its objective concrete existence
constituted, [Gesetzt.] that is, made definite for consciousness through
thought. It, having right and validity, is so recognized, and becomes
law. [Gesetz.] Right in this characterization of it is positive right in
general.
Note.—To constitute something as universal, i.e., to bring it as uni-
versal to consciousness, is to think (§13, note, and §21, note). The con-
tent in thus being brought back to its simplest form is given its final
170/G. W. F. Hegel
mould. Only when what is right becomes law does it receive not merely
the form of universality, but its own truest character. It is to select only
one phase of law, if we consider it merely as a valid rule of conduct
imposed upon all. Preceding this feature is the internal and essential
element of law, namely, the recognition of the content in its definite
“universality. Even the rights of custom exist as thought and are known.
Animals have law in the form of instinct; man alone has law in the form
of custom. The difference between custom and law consists merely in
this, that customs are known in a subjective and accidental way, and
hence are in their actual form more indefinite than laws. In custom, the
universality of thought is more obscured, and the knowledge of right is
a partial and accidental possession of a few. The idea that customs rather
than laws should pass over into life is a deception, because the valid
laws of a nation, when written and collected, do not cease to be cus-
toms. People speak nowadays, indeed, most of all of life and of things
passing over into life, when they are conversant with nothing but the
deadest material and the deadest thoughts. When customs come to be
collected and grouped, as takes place with every people which reaches a
certain grade of civilization, there is formed a statute-book. It is some-
what different from a statute-book properly so-called. A collection is
formless, indefinite, and fragmentary, whereas a real statute-book ap-
prehends and expresses in terms of thought the principles of law in their
universality. England’s land-law or common law is, as is well known,
made up both of statutes, having the forms of laws, and of so-called
unwritten laws. However, this unwritten law is written with a vengeance,
and a knowledge of it is possible only by reading the many quartos
which it fills. The monstrous confusion which prevails in that country,
both in the administration of justice and in the subject-matter of the law,
is graphically portrayed by those who are acquainted with the facts.
They specially notice that, since the unwritten law is contained in the
decisions of law-courts and judges, the judges are continually the law-
givers. Further, the judges are both directed and not directed to the au-
thority of their predecessors. They are so directed, because their prede-
cessors are said to have done nothing but interpret the unwritten law.
They are not so directed, because they are supposed to have in them-
selves the unwritten law, and hence have a right to determine whether
previous decisions are in keeping with it or not.
To avoid a similar confusion, which would have arisen in the ad-
ministration of justice at Rome, when in later times the views of all the
The Philosophy of Right/171
celebrated lawyers were made authoritative, one of the emperors hit
upon an ingenious expedient. He passed a law, by which was founded a
kind of college consisting of the jurisconsults who were longest deceased.
This body had a president, and caine to decisions through a majority of
votes (Mr. Hugo’s “History of Roman Law,” §354).—It is the task of a
nation, or at least of its jurisconsults, not indeed to make a system of
laws entirely new in content, but to recognize the existing content of
laws in its definite universality. They should apprehend it in thought,
while also making additions with regard to its application to special
cases. To refuse to a people or its lawyers this right would be a flagrant
insult.
Addition.—The sun and the planets have laws, but they do not know
them. Barbarians are ruled by impulses, customs, feelings, but have no
consciousness of them. When right is established as law and known, all
random intuitions and opinions, revenge, compassion, and self-interest,
fall away. Only then does right attain its true character and receive its
due honour. In being apprehended right is purified from all mixture of
chance elements, and thus becomes for the first time capable of univer-
sal application. Of course, in the administration of the laws collisions
will necessarily occur, which must be settled by the understanding of
the judge; otherwise, the execution of the law would be merely mechani-
cal. But to do away with collisions by giving full scope to the judge’s
well-meant opinions would be the poorest solution of the difficulty.
Collisions, in fact, belong to the nature of thought, the thinking con-
sciousness and its dialectic, while the mere decision of a judge is arbi-
trary.
In favour of rights of custom it is usually adduced that they are
living; but life, consisting in simple identity with the subject, does not
constitute the essence of the matter. Right must be known in thought. It
must be a system in itself, and only as a system can it be valid for
civilized peoples. Very recently the vocation of making laws has been
abolished. This is not only an affront, but also implies the absurdity that
to no individual has been given the capacity to systematize the infinite
multitude of existing laws, and expose the universal contained in them,
when this task is precisely the most pressing need of the day Similarly,
it has been held that a digest of decisions, such as the Corpus juris, is
preferable to a statute-book giving a detailed exhibition of the universal.
A certain particularity and reminiscence of the historical is supposed to
be contained in the decisions, and in a statute-book it is thought that
172/G. W. F. Hegel
these advantages would be wanting. But the mischievous nature of a
mere collection is clearly manifest in the practice of the English law.
212. Through this identity of the abstract or implicit with what is
actually constituted, [Gesetzt.] only that right is binding which has be-
come law. [Gesetz.] But since to constitute a thing is to give it outer
reality, there may creep into the process a contingency due to self-will
and other elements of particularity. Hence, the actual law may be differ-
ent from what is in itself right.
Note.—Hence, in positive right that which is lawfully established is
the source of the knowledge of what is right, or, more accurately, is the
final resort in litigation. Positive jurisprudence is to that extent an his-
torical science based on authority. Additions are a matter of the under-
standing, and concern outward arrangements, combinations, results,
further applications, and the like. But when the understanding meddles
with the essential substance of the matter, it may serve up singular theo-
ries, of which those regarding criminal law are an illustration.—It is not
only the right but the necessary duty of positive science, it is true, to
deduce out of its positive data the historic progress and also applica-
tions and ramifications. Yet it cannot be wondered at if it be regarded as
a fair cross-question whether a specific finding is after all wholly in
accordance with reason (compare on this point §3 note).
213. Right is realized in the first instance in the form of constituted
law. But it must in its content have further realization. It must apply to
the matter of the relations bearing on property and contract, compli-
cated and ramified as these relations in the civic community become. It
must apply also to the ethical relations of feeling, love, and confidence,
but only in so far as they contain the phase of abstract right (§159). The
moral commands, touching the will in its most private subjectivity and
particularity, cannot be the object of positive legislation. But additional
material for legislation is furnished by the rights and duties which flow
from the administration of justice itself and from the state.
Addition.—Of the higher relations of marriage, love, religion, and
the state, only those aspects can be objects of legislation, which are by
their nature capable of having an external embodiment. Here the laws of
different nations are very different. Amongst the Chinese, for example,
it is a law of the state that the husband shall love his first wife more than
any of the others. If he is convicted of the contrary, he is flogged. So,
too, in the older laws may be found many prescripts concerning integ-
rity and honour, things that are wholly internal and do not fall within the
The Philosophy of Right/173
province of legislation. But as to the oath, where the matter is laid upon
the conscience, integrity and honour must be viewed as in it outwardly
substantive.
214. Besides applying to the particular as a whole, the constituted
law applies to the special case. Here it enters the quantitative region left
unoccupied by the conception. This is, of course, the abstract quantita-
tive, which is found in exchange as value. The conception furnishes in
this region only a general limit, inside of which there is room for consid-
erable uncertainty. But fluctuations of opinion must be cut short, and a
conclusion reached. Hence, inside of this limit a decision has the char-
acter of accident and caprice.
Note.—To whittle the universal down not only to the particular but
to the individual case is the chief function of the purely positive in law.
It cannot, for example, be determined by reason, or decided by any
phase of the conception itself, whether forty lashes or thirty-nine, a fine
of four dollars or three dollars and ninety-nine cents, imprisonment for
a year or three hundred and sixty-four or three hundred and sixty-six
days, be the j ust punishment for a crime. And vet a lash, a cent, or a day
too much or too little is an injustice.
Reason itself recognizes that contingency, contradiction, and ap-
pearance have their sphere or right, limited though it is, and is not at
pains to rectify these contraditions. Here the purpose is solely to reach
actuality, that is, somehow or other within the given limit to get the
matter settled. This settlement is the office of formal self-certitude or
abstract subjectivity, which, observing the prescribed limit, may bring
the matter to issue simply for settlement’s sake. Or its reasons for its
decision are, if it has any, of this kind, that it should use round numbers,
or that the number should be forty less one.
It is of no real significance that the law does not make the final
decision demanded by reality, but hands it over to the judge, limiting
him merely by a maximum and minimum. The maximum and minimum
are themselves round numbers, and do not do away with the require-
ment that the judge shall pronounce a finite purely positive sentence. On
the contrary, this action devolves upon him necessarily.
Addition.—Undoubtedly the laws and the administration of justice
contain in one of their aspects something contingent, since the law, though
of a universal character, must nevertheless be applied to special cases.
If we were to declare against this element of contingency, we would
pronounce in favour of an abstraction. The exact quantity of punish-
174/G. W. F. Hegel
ment cannot be found in any factor of the conception; and whatever
judgment may be made, it is to some extent arbitrary. But this contin-
gency is itself necessary. If one were to argue from the presence of con-
tingency that a code of laws Avas imperfect, he would overlook the fact
that perfection of such a kind is not to be attained. Law must, hence, be
taken as it stands.
(b) Law as Incorporated.
215. Since the binding force of law rests upon the right of self-con-
sciousness (§132 and note), the laws ought to be universally made known.
Note.—To hang up the laws, as did Dionysius the Tyrant, so high
that no citizen could read them, is a wrong. To bury them in a cumbrous
apparatus of learned books, collections of decisions and opinions of
judges, who have deviated from the rule, and, to make matters worse, to
write them in a foreign tongue, so that no one can attain a knowledge of
them, unless he has made them a special subject of study, is the same
wrong in another form.—The rulers, who have given their people a
definite and systematized book of common law, or even an unshapely
collection such as that of Justinian, should be thanked and lauded as
public benefactors. Moreover, they have done a decisive act of justice.
Addition.—Jurists, who have a detailed knowledge of the law, often
look on it as their monopoly. He who is not of their profession, they say,
shall not be heard. The physicists treated Goethe’s theory of colours
harshly, because he was not of their vocation, and was a poet besides.
But we do not need the services of a shoemaker to find out if the shoe
fits, nor do we need to belong to a particular trade in order to have a
knowledge of the objects which are of universal interest in it. Right
concerns freedom, the worthiest and holiest thing in man, the thing which
he must know in so far as he is answerable to it.
216. We are in the presence of an antinomy. Simple universal char-
acteristics are needed in a public statute-book and yet the finite material
by its nature gives rise to endless definition; the context of any law
should be a rounded-off and complete whole, and yet there must con-
tinually be new legal findings. But the right to a completed statute-book
remains unimpaired, since this antinomy does not occur in the case of
fixed general principles, but only with their specialization. General prin-
ciples can be apprehended and presented apart from special cases.
Note.—One chief source of complexity in legislation occurs in the
case of any historic institution, which in its origin contains an injustice.
The Philosophy of Right/175
In the course of time it is sought to infuse into this institution reason and
absolute right. An illustration of this procedure was cited above from
Roman law (§180, note). It occurs also in the old feudal law and else-
where. But it is essential to understand that, owing to the nature of finite
material, any application to it of principles, absolutely reasonable and
in themselves universal, must be an infinite process. To require of a
statute-book that it should be absolutely finished, and incapable of any
modification—a malady which is mainly German—and to base this
demand upon the reason that, if the book cannot be completed, it cannot
come up to the so-called imperfect and therefore falls short of reality,
rest upon a twofold misunderstanding. This view implies a misconcep-
tion of the nature of such finite objects as private right, whose so-called
perfection consists simply in a perennial approximation. It implies, too,
a misconception of the difference between the universal of the under-
standing and that of reason, and also of their application to the finite
and particular material, which goes on to infinity. Le plus grand ennemi
du Bien c’est le Meilleur is the expression of the truly sound human
understanding in contrast with empty reasonings and reflections.
Addition.—If completeness means the complete collection of every
individual thing or instance which belongs to a given sphere, no science
can be complete. If we say that philosophy or any other science is in-
complete, it seems like saying that we must wait till it is perfected, as
the best thing may yet be lacking. In this way there is no getting on at
all, neither in the seemingly completed science of geometry, in which,
nevertheless, new elements are being introduced, nor in philosophy,
which, though dealing with the universal idea, may be continually more
and more specialized. The universal law cannot be forever merely the
ten commandments. Yet it would be absurd to refuse to set up the law
“Thou shalt not kill” on the ground that a statute-book cannot be made
complete. Every statute-book can, of course, be better. It is patent to the
most idle reflection that the most excellent, noble, and beautiful can be
conceived of as still more excellent, noble, and beautiful. A large old
tree branches more and more without becoming a new tree in the pro-
cess; it would be folly, however, not to plant a new tree for the reason
that it was destined in time to have new branches.
217. In the civic society what is intrinsically right becomes law.
What was formerly the simple and abstract realization of my private
will becomes, when recognized, a tangible factor of the existing general
will and consciousness. Acquisition of property and other such transac-
176/G. W. F. Hegel
tions must therefore be settled in accordance with the form assigned to
this realized right. Hence, property now depends upon contract, and, in
general, upon those formalities, which furnish legal proof of posses-
sion.
Note.—The original or direct titles to property and methods of ac-
quisition (§54 and fol.) disappear in the civic community, or occur in it
only as separate accidents and limited elements.—Forms are rejected
by feeling, which holds to the subjective, and by reflection, which clings
to the abstract side of the necessary formality. On the other hand the
dead understanding clings to formalities in opposition to the thing itself,
and infinitely increases their number.—For the rest it is involved in the
whole process of education to win oneself free by hard and long endeav-
our from the sensuous and direct form, and attain to the form of thought
with its appropriate simple expression. It is only in the earliest stages of
legal science that ceremony and formalities are significant. They are
then esteemed as the thing itself rather than its outer symbol. In Roman
law is found a host of details and expressions, which formerly belonged
to religious ceremonies, and should in law have given place to phases of
thought and their appropriate expression.
Addition.—In law what is in itself right is constituted. In property I
possess something which was without an owner; this must now be rec-
ognized and constituted as mine. Hence, with regard to property arise in
a community legal forms. We place boundary stones as a sign for others
to take notice of; we have registers of mortgages and lists of properties.
In the civic community property is generally obtained by contract, a
legal process which is fixed and definite. Against forms the objection
may be urged that they exist merely to bring money to the authorities.
Or they may be held to be objectionable as indicating a lack of confi-
dence. It may be said that the maxim “A man is his word” has lost its
force. But the essential thing about the form is that what is really right
should be constituted as right. My will is rational; it has validity; and
this validity is to be recognized by others. Here my subjectivity and that
of others must fall away, and the will must attain a certainty, assurance,
and objectivity, which can be realized only through the form.
218. In the civic community property and personality have a legal
recognition and validity. Hence, crime is injury done not merely to an
infinite subject, but to a universal fact, which has firm and sure reality.
Here occurs, therefore, the view that crime is a menace to society. On
the one hand the magnitude of the crime is increased, but on the other
The Philosophy of Right/177
hand the security, felt by society, lessens the external importance of the
injury. As a result, crime is now often punished more lightly.
Note.—The fact that, when one member of a community suffers, all
others suffer with him, alters the nature of crime, not indeed in its con-
ception, but in its external existence. The injury now concerns the gen-
eral thought and consciousness of the civic community, and not merely
the existence of the person directly injured. In the heroic ages, portrayed
in the tragedies of the ancients, the citizens did not regard themselves as
injured by the crimes which the members of the royal houses committed
against one another.—Crime, which in its inner nature is an infinite
injury, must as a realized fact submit to a qualitative and quantitative
measure (§96). This outward fact is conditioned by the general idea and
consciousness of the validity of the laws. Hence, the danger to the civic
community is one way of measuring the magnitude of a crime, or one of
its attributes.—The quality or magnitude varies with the condition of a
community. In the circumstances lies the justification of inflicting upon
a theft of a few cents or a turnip the penalty of death, while it imposes a
mild punishment upon a theft of a hundred or several hundred times the
amount. Although the idea of danger to the civic community seems to
aggravate the crime, it has really ameliorated the penalty. A penal code
belongs to its time and to the condition in which the civic community at
that time is.
Addition.—An offence seems to be aggravated, if it is perpetrated in a
community, and yet in such a case it is treated with more leniency. This
appears to be self-contradictory. But although a crime could not be allowed
by the community to go unpunished, since it would then be constituted as
right, yet, because a community is sure of itself, a crime is always merely a
single, isolated act of hostility without any foothold. By means of the very
steadfastness of the community crime becomes a mere subjective act, which
appears to spring not so much out of deliberate will as out of natural im-
pulse. Hence, a more lenient view is taken of crime, and punishment also is
ameliorated. If the community is still unsettled, an example must be made
by means of punishment, for punishment is itself an example against the
example of crime. But in the sure and firm community the position of crime
is so unstable, that a lesser measure of punishment is sufficient to supersede
it. Severe punishments are not absolutely unjust, but are due to the condi-
tion of the time. A criminal code cannot apply to all times, and crimes are
mere seeming existences, which draw after them a greater or less rejection
of themselves.
178/G. W. F. Hegel
(c) The Court of Justice.
219. Right, having entered reality in the form of law, and having be-
come an actual fact, stands in independent opposition to the particular
will and opinion of right, and has to vindicate itself as a universal. The
recognition and realization of right in each special case without the sub-
jective instigation of private interests, is the office of a public power, the
court of justice.
Note.—The office of judge and the court of justice may have origi-
nated historically in the patriarchal relation, in force, or in voluntary
choice. This is for the conception of the object a matter of indifference.
To regard the administration of justice by princes and rulers merely as a
courtesy and favour, as does Herr von Haller in his “Restoration of
Political Science,” is to have no inkling of the fact that, when we speak
of law and the state, we mean that its institutions are reasonable and
absolutely necessary; and that, when we consider the reasonable basis
of the laws, we have nothing to do with the form of their origin. The
extreme opposite to this view is the crude idea that the administration of
justice is club-law or despotism, which suppressed liberty by violence.
But the administration of the law is to be looked upon as the duty quite
as much as the right of the public authority. Whether to delegate the
discharge of this office to some power or not is not at the option of any
individual.
220. Revenge, or the right against crime (§102), is right only in
itself. It is not right in the form of law, i.e., it is not in its actual existence
just. The place of the injured person is now taken by the injured univer-
sal, which is actualized in a special way in the court of justice. To pur-
sue and punish crime is its function, which therefore ceases to be a mere
subjective retaliation or revenge, and is in punishment transformed into
a true reconciliation of right with itself. In the act of punishment, viewed
objectively, right is reconciled to itself, and restores itself by supersed-
ing the crime and realizing its own inherent validity. In punishment,
viewed subjectively, or from the standpoint of the criminal, the law,
known by him and available for his protection, is atoned for. The execu-
tion of the law upon him, or the satisfaction of justice, he finds to be
simply the completed act of his own law.
221. A member of the civic community has the right to bring a
cause before the court of justice, and is also in duty bound to appear in
the court, and accept from it the decision of the point in dispute.
Addition.—Every individual has the right to bring his case before
The Philosophy of Right/179
the court. But he must know the laws, otherwise the privilege would be
of no service to him. But it is also a duty for him to appear before the
court. Under the feudal system the prince or noble defied the court, and
refused to appear, regarding it as a wrong if the court summoned him
before it. This condition of things is contradictory of the real function of
the court. In more recent times the prince has in private affairs recog-
nized the courts as superior to him, and in free states his cases are usu-
ally lost.
222. By the court it is required that a right be proved. The legal
process gives the contending parties an opportunity to substantiate their
claim by evidence, and put the judge in possession of a knowledge of the
case. The necessary steps are themselves rights; their course must be
legally fixed; and they form an essential part of theoretical jurispru-
dence.
Addition.—It may stir men to revolt if they have a right, which is
refused to them on the score that it cannot be proved. But the right,
which I have, must be at the same time constituted. I must be able to
present and prove it, and only when that, which it really is, is constituted
as law, is it of any avail to me in a community.
223. The stages of the legal process may be more and more mi-
nutely subdivided, and each stage has its right. As this subdivision has
no inherent limit, the legal process, which is already of itself a means,
may be opposed to the end, and become something external. Though
this extensive formality is meant for the two contending parties and
belongs to them as their right, it may become an evil and an instrument
of wrong. Therefore, in order that the two parties, and right itself as the
substantive basis, may be protected against the legal process and its
misuse, it is by way of law made a duty for them to submit themselves to
a simple court, the civil court of arbitration, for a preliminary trial,
before going to the higher court.
Note.—Equity includes a departure from formal right through moral
and other regards, and refers directly to the content of the suit. A court
of equity decides upon the particular case, without adhering to the for-
malities of the legal process. It is not confined to the objective evidence,
as is formal law. It decides upon the interest peculiar to each particular
suit, Its judgment is not meant to be applied generally.
224. As the public promulgation of the laws is one of the rights of
the subjective consciousness (§215), so also is the possibility of know-
ing how in any special case the law is carried out. The course of the
180/G. W. F. Hegel
external proceedings should be public, and also the legal principles in-
volved. The order of procedure is of itself a thing of general value.
Though the special content of the case is of interest only to the contend-
ing parties, the universal content, involving right and a legal decision, is
of interest to all. Hence is demanded the publicity of the administration
of the law.
Note.—Deliberations by the members of a court amongst themselves
over the judgment to be given, are only private opinions and views, and
are not of public import.
Addition —Honest common sense holds that the publicity of legal
proceedings is right and just. A strong reason to the contrary was al-
ways the rank of the judiciary. They were not to be seen by everybody,
and regarded themselves as the warders of a law, into which laymen
ought not to intrude. But law should possess the confidence of the citi-
zens, and this fact calls for the publicity of the sentence. Publicity is a
right, because the aim of the court is justice, which as a universality
belongs to all. Moreover, the citizens should be convinced that the right
sentence has actually been pronounced.
225. In the application of the law by the judicial authorities to spe-
cial cases are to be distinguished two separate aspects. There must be
firstly an acquaintance with the direct facts of the case, whether a con-
tract has taken place, an injurious act done, and who the doer is. In
criminal law the act must be known also in its intention, which contains
its substantive criminal quality (§119, note). In the second place the act
must be brought under the law of the restoration of right. This in crimi-
nal law includes the punishment. Decisions in connection with these two
aspects are two different functions.
Note.—In the constitution of the Roman law-courts these two func-
tions occurred in this way. The Proctor gave his decision on the condi-
tion that the case was of such and such a kind, and then he commanded
a certain Judex to makes inquiries into its exact nature. The fixing of the
exact criminal quality of an act, whether, for example, it be murder or
manslaughter, is in English judicial procedure left to the insight or ca-
price of the accuser, and the court is restricted to his view, even if it is
seen to be wrong.
226. To conduct the whole inquiry, to arrange the procedure of the
parties, which is itself a right (§222), and to pass sentence, are the spe-
cial functions of the judge (§225). For him, as the organ of the law, the
case must be prepared and brought under some law. It must be raised
The Philosophy of Right/181
out of its empirical nature, and made a recognized fact with general
attributes.
227. That aspect of the case, which consists in knowing and esti-
mating the direct facts, contains no distinctively judicial elements. The
knowledge is possible to any intelligent man. When, in order that an
estimate of the act may be made, the subjective factor of the insight or
intention of the agent is essential (see Second Part), when the evidence
concerns no abstract object of reason or the understanding, but mere
particulars, circumstances, and objects of sensible perception and sub-
jective certitude, when the case contains no absolutely objective ele-
ment, and the duty of deciding must fall to subjective conviction and
conscience (animi sententia), and when the evidence rests on deposi-
tions and statements, the oath, though a subjective confirmation, is ulti-
mate.
Note. — In this question it is a cardinal point to keep before our
eyes the nature of the available evidence, and to distinguish it from
knowledge and evidence of other kinds. To prove a phase of reason,
such as is the conception of right itself, that is, to recognize its necessity,
requires another method than the proof of a geometrical theorem. More-
over, in a theorem the figure is determined by the understanding, and is
already abstractly made according to a law. But in the case of an em-
pirical content, such as a fact, the material for knowledge is composed
of sense- perceptions, and attestations based on the subjective certitude
of sense. These depositions, testimonies, and circumstances must be put
together, and from them a conclusion must be drawn. With such mate-
rial and such a means of making it independent and objective there is
attained only partial proofs. In obedience to a true logic, which never-
theless is formally illogical, the punishments are consequently excep-
tional. This objective truth is quite different from the truth of a rational
principle or of a proposition, whose matter has already been abstractly
fixed by the understanding. In so far as an empirical truth can be recog-
nized in the specific judicial finding of a court, and so far as in the
finding can be shown to lie an unique quality, that is, an exclusive im-
plicit right and necessity, the formal judicial court is entitled to pass
judgment upon the fact as well as upon the point of law.
Addition.—There is no reason for supposing that the judge is the
only one to decide upon matters of fact. For this not the legal mind alone
but any man of ordinary intelligence is competent. Judgment as to mat-
ter of fact depends upon empirical circumstances, witnesses of the act,
182/G. W. F. Hegel
and similar data of perception. There may also be other facts, by means
of which one can infer the nature and probability of the act in dispute.
Here at most we reach an assurance, but not a truth in the sense of
something eternal. Assurance is subjective conviction or conscience,
and the question to decide is what form to give this certitude at a law
court. The demand, usually made in German law, for a confession on
the part of the criminal has this right, that by it satisfaction is given to
the right of the subjective consciousness. The judge’s decision must agree
with the criminal’s consciousness; and, not until the culprit has con-
fessed, is the sentence free from an element which is foreign to him. But
the criminal may deny the act, and thus imperil the course of justice. Yet
it is a harsh measure to treat him according to the subjective conviction
of the judge, since then he is no longer regarded as free. Hence, it is still
required that the decree of guilt or innocence should come from the soul
of the criminal, and this requisite is secured through trial by jury.
228. When the facts of the case have been decided on, and the judge
in his sentence brings the case, so qualified, under a certain law, the
accused’s right of self-consciousness is not violated. In the first place,
the law is known, and is itself the law of the accused. In the second place
the proceedings, by which the case is brought under a certain law, are
public. But when a decision is not yet reached upon the particular sub-
jective and external content of the matter, a knowledge of which comes
under the first of the two aspects given in §225, the accused’s right of
self- consciousness is preserved by intrusting the case to the subjectivity
of jurors. This procedure is based on the equality of the jurors with the
accused, both as regards class and in general.
Note.—The right of self-consciousness, or the element of subjective
freedom, can be regarded as the substantive point of view in the ques-
tion of the necessity of a public trial, or trial by a jury. To this point of
view all that is essential and needful in these institutions may be re-
duced. From any other standpoint disputes may arise as to whether this
or that feature is an advantage or disadvantage, but such reasonings
either are of secondary consequence and decide nothing, or they are
taken from other and perhaps higher spheres. It is possible that the law
might be as well administered by courts of judges, or even better by
them than by other institutions. But grant the possibility, or let the pos-
sibility become a probability or even a certainty, there remains always
on the other hand the right of self-consciousness, which maintains its
claims and must be satisfied. Because of the general nature of the law, it
The Philosophy of Right/183
can happen that the knowledge of right, the course of legal proceedings,
and the possibility of prosecuting the law, may become the exclusive
property of a class. This class may use a language which is to those in
whose interest it was made a foreign tongue. The members of a civic
community, who have to rely for their subsistence upon their own activ-
ity, knowledge, and will, then become strangers not only to what is most
private and personal in the law, but also to its substantive and rational
essence. Hence, they fall under a kind of bodily vassalage to the legal
class. They may have the right to present themselves in person before
the court (in judicio stare), but of what use is that, if they are not present
as intelligent spirits? The justice, which they receive, remains for them
an external fate.
229. In the civic community the idea is lost in particularity, and
dispersed by the separation of inner and outer. But in the administration
of justice the community is brought back to the conception, that is, to
the unity of the intrinsic universal with subjective particularity. But as
subjective particularity is present only as one single case, and the uni-
versal only as abstract right, the unification is in the first instance rela-
tive. The realization of this relative unity over the whole range of par-
ticularity is the function of the police, and within a limited but concrete
totality constitutes the corporation.
Addition.—In the civic community universality is only necessity. In
the relation of wants, right as such is the only steadfast principle. But
the sphere of this right is limited, and refers merely to the protection of
what I have. To right as such, happiness is something external. Yet in
the system of wants well-being is an essential element. The universal,
which is at first only right, has to spread itself over the whole field of
particularity. Justice, it is true, is a large factor in the civic community.
The state will flourish, if it has good laws, of which free property is the
fundamental condition. But since I am wholly environed by my particu-
larity, I have a right to demand that in connecting myself with others I
shall further my special happiness. Regard to my particular well- being
is taken by the police and the corporation.
C.
Police and Corporation.
230. In the system of wants the subsistence and happiness of every
individual is a possibility, whose realization is conditioned by the objec-
tive system of wants. By the administration of justice compensation is
rendered for injury done to property or person. But the right, which is
184/G. W. F. Hegel
actualized in the particular individual, contains the two following fac-
tors. It asks firstly that person and property should be secured by the
removal of all fortuitous hindrances, and secondly that the security of
the individual’s subsistence and happiness, his particular well-being
should be regarded and actualized as a right.
(a) Police.
231. So far as the particular will is the principle of a purpose, the force,
by which the universal guarantees security, is limited to the realm of
mere accident, and is an external arrangement.
232. Crimes are in their nature contingent or casual, taking the form
of capricious choice of evil, and must be prevented or brought to justice
by the general force. Apart from them, however, arbitrary choice must
be allowed a place in connection with acts in themselves lawful, such as
the private use of property. Here it comes into external relation with
other individuals, and also with public institutions for realizing a com-
mon end. In this way a private act is exposed to a haphazard play of
circumstances, which take it beyond my control. It thus or actually does
effect an injury or wrong to others.
233. This is, indeed, only a possibility of harm. But that no actual
injury is done is now no longer a matter of accident, since the aspect of
wrong in private acts is the ultimate ground for the right of police con-
trol.
234. The relations of external reality occur within the realm of the
infinity created by the understanding, and have accordingly no inherent
limit. Hence, as to what is dangerous and what not, what suspicious and
what free from suspicion, what is to be forbidden, or kept under inspec-
tion, or pardoned with a reprimand, what is to be retained after pardon
under police supervision, and what is to be dismissed on suspended
sentence, no boundary can be laid down. Custom, the spirit of the con-
stitution as a whole, the condition of the time, the danger of the moment,
etc., furnish means for a decision.
Addition.—No fixed definition can here be given, or absolute bound-
ary drawn. Here everything is personal and influenced by subjective
opinion. To the spirit of the constitution or the danger of the times are
due any more decisive characteristics. In time of war, e.g., many things
morally harmless are looked on as harmful. Because of the presence of
this aspect of contingency and arbitrary personality the police are viewed
with odium. They can by far-fetched conclusions draw every kind of
The Philosophy of Right/185
thing within their sphere; for in anything may be found a possibility of
harm. Hence, the police may go to work in a pedantic spirit, and disturb
the moral life of individuals. But great as the nuisance may be, an objec-
tive limit to their action cannot be drawn.
235. Although every one relies on the untrammelled possibility of
satisfying his daily wants, yet, when in the indefinite multiplication and
limitation of them it is sought to procure or exchange the means and it is
desired to expedite the transaction, there comes into sight a common
interest, which makes the business of one subserve the interest of all.
There appear, likewise, ways and means, which may be of public utility.
To oversee and foster the ways and means calculated to promote the
public welfare is the function of a public power.
236. The different interests of producers and consumers may come
into conflict, and, although the right relation between the two may on
the whole arise of its own accord, yet the adjustment of the two calls for
a regulation standing above both sides and put into operation consciously.
The right to make such a regulation in any particular case (e.g., taxa-
tion of the articles most necessary to sustain life), consists in this, that
the public offer of goods, in wide and daily use, is not to the individual,
as such, but to him as a universal, i.e., to the public. The people’s right
to honest dealing and inspection of goods to prevent fraud may be en-
forced by a public functionary. But more especially does the depen-
dence of great branches of industry upon foreign conditions and distant
combinations, which the individuals engaged in these industries cannot
themselves oversee, make necessary a general supervision and control.
Note.—In contrast with freedom of business and trade in the civic
community stands the other extreme of the establishment and direction
of the work of all by means of official regulation. Under this head comes
perhaps the construction of the pyramids and other monstrous Egyptian
and Asiatic works. They were built for public ends without the interven-
tion of any work done by the individual to further his own private inter-
ests. Private interest summons the principle of freedom against interfer-
ence from above, but the more blindly it is sunk in self-seeking ends, the
more it stands in need of regulation, in order that it may be led back to
the universal. Thus what might be a dangerous upheaval becomes largely
harmless, and shorter time is left for conflicts to adjust themselves merely
by unconscious necessity.
Addition.—Police control and provision are intended to intervene
between the individual and the universal pos-sibility of obtaining his
186/G. W. F. Hegel
wants. It takes charge of lighting the streets, building bridges, taxation
of daily wants, even of health. Two main views stand out at this point.
One view is that it falls to the police to look after everything the other
that the police should not interfere at all, since every one will be guided
by the need of others. The individual, it is true, must have the right to
earn his bread in this or the other way, but on the other hand the public
has a right to ask that what is necessary shall be done. Both claims
should be met, and the freedom of trade ought not to be of such a kind as
to endanger the general weal.
237. The possibility of sharing in the general wealth is open to the
individual and secured to him by public regulations. This security, how-
ever, cannot be complete, and in any case the possibility of sharing in
the general wealth is from the subjective side open to casualties, just in
proportion as it presupposes conditions of skill, health, and capital.
238. In the first instance the family is the substantive whole. To it
falls the duty of providing for the particular side of the individual’s life,
both in regard of the means and talents requisite for winning his mainte-
nance out of the common stock, and in regard of subsistence and provi-
sion in case of disability. But the civic community tears the individual
out of the family bonds, makes its members strangers to one another,
and recognizes them as independent persons. Instead of external inor-
ganic nature and the paternal soil, from which the individual drew sub-
sistence, the community substitutes its own ground, and subjects the
whole family to fortuitous dependence upon itself. Thus the individual
has become the son of the civic community, which makes claims upon
him, at the same time as he has rights to it.
Addition.—The family has, of course, to provide bread for indi-
viduals; but in the civic community the family is subordinate and merely
forms a basis. After that it is no longer of such extensive efficacy. Rather
is the civic community the monster, which snatches man to itself, claims
from him that he should toil for it and that he should exist through it and
act by means of it. If man is a member of such a community, he has just
such rights in it or claims upon it as he had in and upon the family. The
civic community must protect its members, and defend their rights, as
they in turn are engaged to obey its mandates.
239. The civic community, in its character as universal family, has
the right and duty to supersede, if necessary, the will of the parents, and
superintend the education of the young, at least in so far as their educa-
tion bears upon their becoming members of the community. Especially
The Philosophy of Right/187
is this the case if the education is to be completed not by the parents but
by others. Further, the community must undertake general arrangements
for education, in so far as they can be made.
Addition.—The boundary line between the rights of parents and
those of the civic community is hard to define. The parents generally
suppose themselves to possess complete liberty with regard to educa-
tion, and to be able to do whatever they wish. Whenever instruction is
made public, the chief opposition usually comes from the parents, who
cry out and make acclaim about teachers and schools merely because
they are displeased with them. In spite of this, the community has the
right to proceed according to tried methods, and to compel parents to
send their children to school, to have them vaccinated, etc. Contests
occur in France between the demands of free instruction, i.e., of the
pleasure of parents, on the one side, and the oversight of the state on the
other.
240. Similarly, the community has the duty and right to take under
its guardianship those who wantonly squander their subsistence and that
of their family. In the place of this extravagance it substitutes their real
end, which it seeks to promote along with the purpose of the community.
Addition.—It was a law in Athens that every citizen should give an
account of his way of life. Our view is that this is no one’s business. Of
course every individual is in one way independent, but he is also a mem-
ber of the system of the civic community. In so far as every man has the
right to ask maintenance from it, it must also protect him against him-
self. It is not simply that starvation must be guarded against. The wider
view is that there never shall arise a rabble, or mass. Since the civic
community is obliged to support individuals, it has also the right to
insist that individuals should care for its subsistence.
241. Not the arbitrary will only, but accidental circumstances, which
may be physical or external (§200), may bring the individual to poverty.
This condition exposes him to the wants of the civic community, which has
already deprived him of the natural methods of acquisition (§217), and
superseded the bond of the family stock (§181). Besides, poverty causes
men to lose more or less the advantage of society, the opportunity to acquire
skill or education, the benefit of the administration of justice, the care for
health, even the consolation of religion. Amongst the poor the public power
takes the place of the family in regard to their immediate need, dislike of
work, bad disposition, and other vices, which spring out of poverty and the
sense of wrong.
188/G. W. F. Hegel
242. The subjective element of poverty, or generally the distress, to
which the individual is by nature exposed, requires subjective assistance,
both in view of the special circumstances, and out of sympathy and love.
Here, amidst all general arrangements, morality finds ample room to work.
But since the assistance is in its own nature and in its effects casual, the
effort of society shall be to discover a general remedy for penury and to do
without random help.
Note.—Haphazard almsgiving and such foundations as the burning of
lamps beside holy images, etc., are replaced by public poor-houses, hospi-
tals, street lighting, etc. To charity enough still remains. It is a false view for
charity to restrict its help to private methods and casual sentiment and
knowledge, and to feel itself injured and weakened by regulations binding
upon the whole community. On the contrary, the public system is to be
regarded as all the more complete, the less remains to be done by special
effort.
243. When the civic community is untrammelled in its activity, it in-
creases within itself in industry and population. By generalizing the rela-
tions of men by the way of their wants, and by generalizing the manner in
which the means of meeting these wants are prepared and procured, large
fortunes are amassed. On the other side, there occur repartition and limita-
tion of the work of the individual labourer and, consequently, dependence
and distress in the artisan class. With these drawbacks are associated cal-
lousness of feeling and inability to enjoy the larger possibilities of freedom,
especially the mental advantages of the civic community.
244. When a large number of people sink below the standard of living
regarded as essential for the members of society, and lose that sense of
right, rectitude, and honour which is derived from self-support, a pauper
class arises, and wealth accumulates disproportionately in the hands of a
few.
Addition.—The way of living of the pauper class is the lowest of
all, and is adopted by themselves. But with different peoples the mini-
mum is very different. In England even the poorest man believes that he
has his right, and with him this standard is different from that which
satisfies the poor in other lands. Poverty does not of itself make a pau-
per. The pauper state implies a frame of mind, associated often with
poverty, consisting in inner rebellion against the wealthy, against soci-
ety, and against constituted authority. Moreover, in order to descend to
the class, which is at the mercy of the changes and chances of life, men
must be heedless and indifferent to work, as are the Lazzaroni in Naples.
The Philosophy of Right/189
Hence, in this section of the community arises the evil thing that a man
has not self-respect enough to earn his own living by his work, and still
he claims support as a right. No man can maintain a right against na-
ture. Yet, in social conditions want assumes the form of a wrong done to
one or other class. The important question, how poverty is to be done
away with, is one which has disturbed and agitated society, especially in
modern times.
245. If upon the more wealthy classes the burden were directly laid
of maintaining the poor at the level of their ordinary way of life, or if in
public institutions, such as rich hospitals, foundations, or cloisters, the
poor could receive direct support, they would be assured of subsistence
without requiring to do any work. This would be contrary both to the
principle of the civic community and to the feeling its members have of
independence and honour.
Again, if subsistence were provided not directly but through work,
or opportunity to work, the quantity of produce would be increased, and
the consumers, becoming themselves producers, would be proportionately
too few. Whether in the case of over-production, then, or in the case of
direct help, the evil sought to be removed would remain, and, indeed, would
by either method be enhanced. There arises the seeming paradox that the
civic community when excessively wealthy is not rich enough. It has not
sufficient hold of its own wealth to stem excess of poverty and the creation
of paupers.
Note.—These phenomena may be studied in England, where they oc-
cur on an extensive scale. In that country may also be observed the conse-
quences of poor rates, of vast foundations, of unlimited private benevo-
lence, and, above all, of the discontinuance of the corporation. In England,
and especially in Scotland, the most direct remedy against poverty and
against laziness and extravagance, which are the cause of poverty, has been
proved by practical experience to be to leave the poor to their fate, and
direct them to public begging. This, too, has been found to be the best
means for preserving that sense of shame and honour, which is the subjec-
tive basis of society.
246. By means of its own dialectic the civic community is driven be-
yond its own limits as a definite and self-complete society. It must find
consumers and the necessary means of life amongst other peoples, who
either lack the means, of which it has a superfluity, or have less developed
industries.
247. As the firm-set earth, or the soil, is the basis of family life, so
190/G. W. F. Hegel
the basis of industry is the sea, the natural element which stimulates
intercourse with foreign lands. By the substitution for the tenacious grasp
of the soil, and for the limited round of appetites and enjoyments em-
braced within the civic life, of the fluid element of danger and destruc-
tion, the passion for gain is transformed. By means of the sea, the great-
est medium of communication, the desire for wealth brings distant lands
into an intercourse, which leads to commercial exchange. In this inter-
course is found one of the chief means of culture, and in it, too, trade
receives world-historical significance.
Note.—Rivers are not natural boundaries, though people have in
modern times tried to make them so. Rather do they, and more espe-
cially the sea, bind men together.
That Horace (Carm. I. 3) is wrong when he says:
“... deus abscidit
Prudens Oceano dissociabili
Terras,...”
is shown by the general fact that basins of rivers are inhabited by one
nation or race. This is proved even more conspicuously by the relations
of ancient Greece with Ionia and Magna Graecia, of Brittany with Brit-
ain, of Denmark with Norway, of Sweden with Finland and Lapland, in
contrast with the slight intercourse obtaining between the inhabitants of
the coast and those of the interior. We have only to compare the position
of the nations, who have frequented the sea, with that of the nations who
have avoided it, in order to discover what a means of culture and com-
merce it really is. Observe how the Egyptians and Hindoos have become
dull and insensible, and are sunk in the grossest and most shameful
superstitions, while all the great aspiring nations press to the sea.
248. The wider connection due to the sea becomes a means for colo-
nization, to which, be it sporadic or systematic, the full-grown civic
community finds itself impelled. Thus for a part of its population it
provides on a new soil a return to the family principle, and also procures
for itself at the same time a new incentive and field for work.
Addition.—The civic society is forced to found colonies, owing to
the increase of population, but more especially because production over-
steps the needs of consumption, and the growing numbers cannot sat-
isfy their needs by their work. Sporadic colonization occurs mainly in
Germany, the colonists, finding a home in America or Russia, being
without any connection with and of no benefit to their native land. A
The Philosophy of Right/191
different kind of colonization is the system-atic, which is conducted by
the state consciously and with suitable appliances. Of this kind of colo-
nization many forms occurred amongst the ancients, especially the
Greeks. In Greece the citizens did not engage in severe toil, but directed
their energies to public affairs. When the population grew to such an
extent that it was difficult to provide for them, the youth were sent into
a new neighbourhood, which, was sometimes chosen for them, some-
times left to the accident of discovery. In modern times colonists have
not been granted the rights possessed by the inhabitants of the parent
country. The result has been war and ultimate independence, as may be
read in the history of the English and Spanish colonies. The indepen-
dence of the colonies has turned out to be of the greatest advantage to
the mother land, just as the liberation of the slaves was of the greatest
advantage to the masters.
249. The universal, which is contained in the particularity of the
civic community, is realized and preserved by the external system of
police supervision, whose purpose is simply to protect and secure the
multitude of private ends and interests subsisting within it. It has also
the higher function of caring for the interests which lead out beyond the
civic community (§246). In accordance with the idea particularity itself
makes the universal, which exists in its special interests, the end and
object of its will and endeavour. The ethical principle thus comes back
as a constituent element of the civic community. This is the corporation.
(b) The Corporation.
250. In its substantive family life and life of nature the agricultural class
contains directly the concrete universal in which it lives. The universal
class, again, has this universal as an independent end of its activity, and
as its ground and basis. The middle or commercial class is essentially
engaged with the particular, and hence its peculiar province is the cor-
poration.
251. The work of the civic community spreads in different direc-
tions in obedience to the nature of its particularity. Since the implicit
equality, contained in particularity, is here realized as the common pur-
pose of an association, the particular and self-seeking end becomes some-
thing actively universal. Each member of the civic community is with
his special talent a member of the corporation. The universal aim of the
corporation is accordingly quite concrete, and has no wider application
than what lies in trade and its distinctive interests.
192/G. W. F. Hegel
252. In keeping with this view, the corporation, under the oversight
of the public authority, has the right to look after its own clearly-defined
interests, according to the objective qualifications of skill and rectitude
to adopt members, whose number is determined by the general system,
to make provision for its adherents against fortuitous occurrences, and
to foster the capacity necessary in any one desiring to become a mem-
ber. In general it must stand to its members as a second family, a posi-
tion which remains more indefinite than the family relation, because the
general civic community is at a farther remove from indi viduals and
their special needs.
Note.—The tradesman is different from the day-labourer, as well as
from him who is ready for any casual employment. The trader, be he
employer or employee, is a member of an association, not for mere ac-
cidental gain but for the whole circuit of gain, or the universal involved
in his particular maintenance. The privileges, which are rights of a cor-
porate branch of the civic community, are not the same as special privi-
leges in the etymological sense of the term. Special privileges are hap-
hazard exceptions to a general law, but the other privileges are legal
phases of the particularity of an essential branch of the community.
253. The corporation provides for the family a basis and steady
means (§170), by securing for it a subsistence varying according to
capacity. Moreover, both security and capacity are in the corporation
publicly recognized. Hence, the member of a corporation does not need
to certify his capacity or the reality of his regular income to any larger
outside organization. It is also recognized that he belongs to and has
active interest in a whole, whose aim is to promote the welfare of soci-
ety in general. Thus, in his class he has honour.
Note.—The corporation, in making secure the means of the family,
corresponds to agriculture and private property in another sphere (§203,
note).—When it is complained that the luxury and extravagance of the
commercial class give rise to paupers (§244), it must not be overlooked
that these conditions have an ethical or social basis in such causes as the
increasingly mechanical nature of work. If the individual is not a mem-
ber of an authorized corporation, and no combination can be a corpora-
tion unless it is authorized, he has no class-honour. By limiting himself
to the self-seeking side of trade and his own subsistence and enjoy-
ments, he loses standing. He perhaps seeks, in that case, to obtain rec-
ognition by displaying his success in his trade; but his display ha s no
limit, because he has no desire to live in a way becoming his class.
The Philosophy of Right/193
Indeed, he has no class at all, since only what is of general purport
really exists in a civic community, and can be established and recog-
nized. As he has no class, he has not the more universal life characteris-
tic of the class.—In the corporation the assistance received by poverty
loses its lawless character, and the humiliation wrongly associated with
it. The opulent, by performing their duty to their associates, lose their
pride, and cease to stir up envy in others. Integrity receives its due honour
and recognition.
254. The corporation sets a limit to the so-called natural right to
make acquisitions by the exercise of any skill, only so far as the limit is
a rational one. This right is thus freed from mere opinion and random
influences, and from danger to itself and others. In this way it wins
recognition and an assured place, and is exalted to the level of a con-
scious effort to attain a common purpose.
255. As the family was the first, so the corporation, grounded upon
the civic community, constitutes the second ethical root or basis of the
state. The family contains the elements of subjective particularity and
objective universality in substantive unity. Then, in the civic commu-
nity, these elements are in the first instance dissociated and become on
the one side a particularity of want and satisfaction, which is turned
back into itself, and on the other side abstract legal universality. The
corporation joins these two in an internal way, so that particular well-
being exists and is realized as a right.
Note.—Sanctity in the marriage tie and honour in the corporation
are the points which the disorganizing forces of the civic community
assail.
Addition.—In modern times the corporation has been superseded,
with the intention that the individual should care for himself. Grant that
the intention is wise, yet the obligation of the individual to procure his
own livelihood is not by the corporation altered. In our modern states
the citizens participate only slightly in the general business. It is, how-
ever, needful to provide the ethical man with a universal activity, one
above his private ends. This universal, with which the modern state
does not always supply him, is given by the corporation. We have al-
ready seen that the individual, while maintaining himself in the civic
community, acts also for others. But this unconscious necessity is not
enough. It is in the corporation that a conscious and reflective ethical
reality is first reached. The superintendence cf the state is higher, it is
true, and must be given an upper place; otherwise the corporation would
194/G. W. F. Hegel
become fossilized; it would waste itself upon itself, and be reduced to
the level of a wretched club. But the corporation is not in its absolute
nature a secret society, but rather the socializing of a trade, which with-
out it would stand in isolation. It takes the trade up into a circle, in
which it secures strength and honour.
256. The limited and finite end of the corporation has its truth in the
absolutely universal end and the absolute actuality of this end. This
actualized end is also the truth of the division involved in the external
system of police, which is merely a relative identity of the divided ele-
ments. Thus, the sphere of the civic community passes into the state.
Note.—City and country are the two as yet ideal constituents, out of
which the state proceeds. The city is the seat of the civic society, and of
the reflection which goes into itself and causes separation. The country
is the seat of the ethical, which rests upon nature. The one comprises the
individuals, who gain their livelihood by virtue of their relation to other
persons possessed of rights. The other comprises the family. The state is
the true meaning and ground of both.
The development of simple ethical observance into the dismember-
ment marking the civic community, and then forward into the state, which
is shown to be the true foundation of these more abstract phases, is the
only scientific proof of the conception of the state.—Although in the
course of the scientific exposition the state has the appearance of a re-
sult, it is in reality the true foundation and cause. This appearance and
its process are provisional, and must now be replaced by the state in its
direct existence. In actual fact the state is in general primary. Within it
the family grows into the civic community, the idea of the state being
that which sunders itself into these two elements. In the development of
the civic community the ethical substance reaches its infinite form, which
contains the following elements:—(1) infinite differentiation even to the
point at which consciousness as it is in itself exists for itself, and (2) the
form of universality, which in civilization is the form of thought, that
form by which spirit is itself in its laws and institutions. They are its
thought will, and it and they together become objective and real in an
organic whole.
Third Section: The State.
257. The state is the realized ethical idea or ethical spirit. It is the will
which manifests itself, makes itself clear and visible, substantiates it-
self. It is the will which thinks and knows itself, and carries out what it
The Philosophy of Right/195
knows, and in so far as it knows. The state finds in ethical custom its
direct and unreflected existence, and its indirect and reflected existence
in the self-consciousness of the individual and in his knowledge and
activity. Self-consciousness in the form of social disposition has its sub-
stantive freedom in the state, as the essence, purpose, and product of its
activity.
Note.—The Penates are the inner and lower order of gods; the spirit
of a nation, Athene, is the divinity which knows and wills itself. Piety is
feeling, or ethical behaviour in the form of feeling; political virtue is the
willing of the thought-out end, which exists absolutely.
258.—The state, which is the realized substantive will, having its
reality in the particular self- consciousness raised to the plane of the
universal, is absolutely rational. This substantive unity is its own mo-
tive and absolute end. In this end freedom attains its highest right. This
en4 has the highest right over the individual, whose highest duty in turn
is to be a member of the state.
Note.—Were the state to be considered as exchangeable with the
civic society, and were its decisive features to be regarded as the secu-
rity and protection of property and personal freedom, the interest of the
individual as such would be the ultimate purpose of the social union. It
would then be at one’s option to be a member of the state.—But the
state has a totally different relation to the individual. It is the objective
spirit, and he has his truth, real existence, and ethical status only in
being a member of it. Union, as such, is itself the true content and end,
since the individual is intended to pass a universal life. His particular
satisfactions, activities, and way of life have in this authenticated sub-
stantive principle their origin and result.
Rationality, viewed abstractly, consists in the thorough unity of
universality and individuality. Taken concretely, and from the stand-
point of the content, it is the unity of objective freedom with subjective
freedom, of the general substantive will with the individual conscious-
ness and the individual will seeking particular ends. From the stand-
point of the form it consists in action determined by thought-out or uni-
versal laws and principles;—This idea is the absolutely eternal and nec-
essary being of spirit.— The idea of the state is not concerned with the
historical origin of either the state in general or of any particular state
with its special rights and characters. Hence, it is indifferent whether
the state arose out of the patriarchal condition, out of fear or confi-
dence, or out of the corporation. It does not care whether the basis of
196/G. W. F. Hegel
state rights is declared to be in the divine, or in positive right, or con-
tract, or custom. When we are dealing simply with the science of the
state, these things are mere appearances, and belong to history. The
causes or grounds of the authority of an actual state, in so far as they are
required at all, must be derived from the forms of right, which have
validity in the state.
Philosophic investigation deals with only the inner side of all this,
the thought conception. To Rousseau is to be ascribed the merit of dis-
covering and presenting a principle, which comes up to the standard of
the thought, and is indeed thinking itself, not only in its form, such as
would be a social impulse or divine authority, but in its very essence.
This principle of Rousseau is will. But he conceives of the will only in
the limited form of the individual will, as did also Fichte afterwards,
and regards the universal will not as the absolutely reasonable will, but
only as the common will, proceeding out of the individual will as con-
scious. Thus the union of individuals in a state becomes a contract,
which is based upon caprice, opinion, and optional, explicit consent.
Out of this view the understanding deduces consequences, which de-
stroy the absolutely divine, and its absolute authority and majesty. Hence,
when these abstractions attained to power, there was enacted the most
tremendous spectacle which the human race has ever witnessed. All the
usages and institutions of a great state were swept away. It was then
proposed to begin over again, starting from the thought, and as the basis
of the state to will only what was judged to be rational. But as the
undertaking was begun with abstractions void of all ideas, it ended in
scenes of tragic cruelty and horror.
As against the principle of the individual will we must bear in mind
the fundamental conception that the objective will is in itself rational in
its very conception, whether or not it be known by the individual or
willed as an object of his good pleasure. We must also keep in mind that
the opposite principle, the subjectivity of freedom, i.e., such knowing
and willing as are retained in that principle, contains only one, and that
a one-sided factor of the idea of the reasonable will. The will is reason-
able only if it is so both in itself and when it is actualized.
The other contrary of the thought, which apprehends the state as an
embodiment of reason, is the theory which takes such external appear-
ances as the accidents of distress, need, protection, strength, and wealth,
for the substance of the state, when they are mere elements of its histori-
cal development. Moreover, it is in unique and isolated individuals that
The Philosophy of Right/197
the principle of knowledge is here said to be found, not however in their
thought, but in the attributes of their merely empirical personalities,
such as strength or weakness, wealth or poverty. The freak of disregard-
ing is absolutely infinite and reasonable in the state and of banishing
thought from the constitution of the state’s inner nature has never ap-
peared so undisguisedly as in Mr. v. Haller’s “Restauration der
Staatswissenschaft.” In all genuine attempts to reach the real nature of
the state, though the principles adduced be ever so one-sided and super-
ficial, there is yet implied that rightly to conceive of the state is to attain
to thoughts and universal characters. But in the book alluded to, the
author not only consciously renounces both the rational content, which
is the state, and the form of thought, but passionately inveighs against
them. One of what he himself calls the far-reaching effects of his work
is due to the circumstance that in his inquiry he knew how to fasten the
whole into one piece without the help of thought. Hence, he says, are
absent the confusion and disturbance, which arise when into a discus-
sion of the contingent is foisted a suggestion about the substantive, and
into a discussion of the empirical and external is injected a reminder of
the universal and rational. Hence, when engaged with the inadequate
and imperfect he is not continually reminding his readers of what is
higher and infinite.—Yet even this method of inquiry has consequences.
Since the fortuitous is taken as the essence of the state, and not the
substantive, there results from the absence of thought an incoherence,
which jogs on without looking back, and finds itself quite at home in the
very opposite of what it had commended a moment before.
11
Addition.—The state as a completed reality is the ethical whole and
the actualization of freedom. It is the absolute purpose of reason that
freedom should be actualized. The state is the spirit, which abides in the
and there realizes itself consciously; while in nature it is realized only as
the other of itself or the sleeping spirit. Only when it is present in con-
sciousness, knowing itself as an existing object, is it the state. In think-
ing of freedom we must not take our departure from individuality or the
individual’s self-consciousness, but from the essence of self- conscious-
ness. Let man be aware of it or not, this essence realizes itself as an
independent power, in which particular persons are only phases. The
state is the march of God in the world; its ground or cause is the power
of reason realizing itself as will. When thinking of the idea of the state,
we must not have in our mind any particular state, or particular institu-
tion, but must rather contemplate the idea, this actual God, by itself.
198/G. W. F. Hegel
Although a state may be declared to violate right principles and to be
defective in various ways, it always contains the essential moments of
its existence, if, that is to say, it belongs to the full formed states of our
own time. But as it is more easy to detect short-comings than to grasp
the positive meaning, one easily falls into the mistake of dwelling so
much upon special aspects of the state as to overlook its inner organic
being. The state is not a work of art. It is in the world, in the sphere of
caprice, accident, and error. Evil behaviour can doubtless disfigure it in
many ways, but the ugliest man, the criminal, the invalid, the cripple,
are living men. The positive thing, the life, is present in spite of defects,
and it is with this affirmative that we have here to deal.
259. (a) The idea of the state has direct actuality in the individual
state. It, as a self-referring organism, is the constitution or internal state-
organization or polity.
(b) It passes over into a relation of the individual state to other
states. This is its external organization or polity.
(c) As universal idea, or kind, or species, it has absolute authority
over individual states. This is the spirit which gives itself reality in the
process of world-history.
Addition.—The state as an actual thing is pre-eminently individual,
and, what is more, particular. Individuality as distinguished from par-
ticularity is an element of the idea of the state itself, while particularity
belongs to history. Any two states, as such, are independent of each
other. Any relation between the two must be external. A third must there-
fore stand above and unite them. Now this third is the spirit, which gives
itself reality in world-history, and constitutes itself absolute judge over
states. Several states indeed might form an alliance and pass judgment
upon others, or interstate relations may arise of the nature of the Holy
Alliance. But these things are always relative and limited, as was the
everlasting peace. The sole, absolute judge, which always avails against
the particular, is the self-caused self-existing spirit, which presents it-
self as the universal and efficient leaven of world-history.
A.
Internal Polity.
260. The state is the embodiment of concrete freedom. In this concrete
freedom, personal individuality and its particular interests, as found in
the family and civic community, have their complete development. In
this concrete freedom, too, the rights of personal individuality receive
adequate recognition. These interests and rights pass partly of their own
The Philosophy of Right/199
accord into the interest of the universal. Partly, also, do the individuals
recognize by their own knowledge and will the universal as their own
substantive spirit, and work for it as their own end. Hence, neither is the
universal completed without the assistance of the particular interest,
knowledge, and will, nor, on the other hand, do individuals, as private
persons, live merely for their own special concern. They regard the gen-
eral end, and are in all their activities conscious of this end. The modern
state has enormous strength and depth, in that it allows the principle of
subjectivity to complete itself to an independent extreme of personal
particularity, and yet at the same time brings it back into the substantive
unity, and thus preserves particularity in the principle of the state.
Addition.—The peculiarity of the idea of the modern state is that it
is the embodiment of freedom, not according to subjective liking, but to
the conception of the will, the will, that is, in its universal and divine
character. Incomplete states are they, in which this idea is still only a
germ, whose particular phases are not permitted to mature into self-
dependence. In the republics of classical antiquity universality, it is true,
is to be found. But in those ages particularity had not as yet been re-
leased from its fetters, and led back to universality or the universal pur-
pose of the whole. The essence of the modern state binds together the
universal and the full freedom of particularity, including the welfare of
individuals. It insists that the interests of the family and civic commu-
nity shall link themselves to the state, and yet is aware that the universal
purpose can make no advance without the private knowledge and will of
a particularity, which must adhere to its right. The universal must be
actively furthered, but, on the other side, subjectivity must be wholly
and vitally developed. Only when both elements are present in force is
the state to be regarded as articulate and truly organized.
261. In contrast with the spheres of private right and private good,
of the family and of the civic community, the state is on one of its sides
an external necessity. It is thus a higher authority, in regard to which the
laws and interests of the family and community are subject and depen-
dent. On the other side, however, the state is the indwelling end of these
things, and is strong in its union of the universal end with the particular
interests of individuals. Thus, just so far as people have duties to fulfil
towards it, they have also rights (§155).
Note.—We have already noticed (§3, note) that Montesquieu in his
famous work, “The Spirit of the Laws,” has kept before his mind, and
sought to prove in detail, the thought that the laws, especially those of
200/G. W. F. Hegel
private right, are dependent upon the character of the state. He has main-
tained the philosophic view that the part is to be regarded only in rela-
tion to the whole.
Duty is, in the first instance, a relation to something, which is for
me a substantial and self- subsisting universal. Right, on the other hand,
is in general some embodiment of this substantive reality, and hence
brings to the front its particular side and my particular freedom. These
two things, treated formally, appear as deputed to different phases or
persons. But the state as ethical, implying thorough interpenetration of
the substantive and the par-ticular, brings into light the fact that my
obligation to the substantive reality is at the same time the realization of
my particular freedom. In the state, duty and right are bound together in
one and the same reference. But because in the state the elements of
right and duty attain their peculiar shape and reality, the difference be-
tween them once more becomes manifest. While they are identical in
themselves or formally, they differ in content. In private right and mor-
als the necessity inherent in the relation fails to be realized. The abstract
equality of content is alone brought forward. In this abstract region
what is right for one is right for another, and what is one man’s duty is
also another man’s duty. This absolute identity of right and duty occurs,
when transferred to the content, simply as equality. This content, which
is now to rank as the complete universal and sole principle of duty and
right, is the personal freedom of men. Hence, slaves have no duties,
because they have no rights, and vice versa, religious duties, of course,
falling outside of this discussion.
But when we turn from abstract identity to the concrete idea, the
idea which develops itself within itself, right and duty are distinguished,
and at once become different in content. In the family, for example, the
rights of the son are not the same in content as his duties towards his
father, nor are the rights of the citizen the same in content as his duties
to his prince or government.—The conception of the union of duty and
right is one of the most important features of states, and to it is due their
internal strength. —The abstract treatment of duty insists upon casting
aside and banishing the particular interest as something unessential and
even unworthy. But the concrete method, or the idea, exhibits particu-
larity as essential, and the satisfaction of the particular as a sheer neces-
sity. In carrying out his duty the individual must in some way or other
discover his own interest, his own satisfaction and recompense. A right
must accrue to him out of his relation to the state, and by this right the
The Philosophy of Right/201
universal concern becomes his own private concern. The particular in-
terest shall in truth be neither set aside nor suppressed, but be placed in
open concord with the universal. In this concord both particular and
universal are inclosed. The individual, who from the point of view of his
duties is a subject, finds, in fulfilling his civic duties, protection of per-
son and property, satisfaction of his real self, and the consciousness and
self-respect implied in his being a member of this whole. Since the citi-
zen discharges his duty as a performance and business for the state, the
state is permanently preserved. Viewed from the plane of abstraction,
on the other hand, the interest of the universal would be satisfied, if the
contracts and business, which it demands of him, are by him fulfilled
simply as duties.
Addition.—Everything depends on the union of universality and
particularity in the state. In the ancient states the subjective end was
out-and-out one with the volition of the state. In modern times, on the
contrary, we demand an individual view, and individual will and con-
science. Of these things the ancients had none in the same sense. For
them the final thing was the will of the state. While in Asiatic despo-
tisms the individual had no inner nature, and no self-justification, in the
modern world man’s inner self is honoured. The conjunction of duty and
right has the twofold aspect that what the state demands as duty should
forthwith be the right of individuality, since the state’s demand is noth-
ing other than the organization of the conception of freedom The pre-
vailing characters of the individual will are by the state brought into
objective reality, and in this way first attain to their truth and realiza-
tion. The state is the sole and essential condition of the attainment of the
particular end and good.
262. The actual idea, the spirit, divides itself, as we have said, into
the two ideal spheres of its conception, the family and the civic commu-
nity. It descends into its two ideal and finite spheres, that it may out of
them become actually infinite and real. Hence, spirit distributes to indi-
viduals as a mass the material of its finite realization in these spheres, in
such a way that the portion of the individual has the appearance of
being occasioned by his circumstances, caprice, and private choice (§185,
and note).
Addition.—In the Platonic state subjective freedom has not as yet
any place, since in it the rulers assigned to individuals their occupa-
tions. In many oriental states occupation depends upon birth. But sub-
jective freedom, which must be respected, demands free choice for indi-
202/G. W. F. Hegel
viduals.
263. In these two spheres, in which the elements of spirit, individu-
ality, and particularity, have iu one their direct and in the other their
reflected reality, spirit is their objective universality in the form of ap-
pearance. It is the power of the rational in the region of necessity (§184),
and becomes the institutions, which have already been passed in review.
Addition.—The state, as spirit, divides itself according to the par-
ticular determining attributes of its conception, in order to exist in its
own way. “We may adduce an illustration out of the region of nature.
The nerve-system is especially the sensitive system; it is the abstract
element which aims, so to speak, to exist by itself, and in this existence
to have its own identity. Now feeling, when analyzed, furnishes two
separate sides, dividing itself so that the differences appear as complete
systems. On one side is the abstract sense of feeling, which withdraws
by itself; it is the smothered movement going on internally in reproduc-
tion, internal self-nourishment, assimilation, and digestion. On the other
hand this withdrawal into oneself has over against itself the element of
difference, or the movement outwards; and this outward movement of
feeling is irritability. These two form a system of their own, and there
are lower orders of animals, in which this system alone is developed,
being without that unity of feeling which marks the complete soul. If we
compare these facts of nature with the facts of spirit, we may place
together family and sensibility on the one side, civic community and
irritability on the other. The third is the state, corresponding to the ac-
tual nervous system as an internally organized whole. But it is a living
unity only in so far as both elements, the family and the civic commu-
nity, are developed within it. The laws which govern these two are the
institutions of the rational; it makes its appearance in them. The founda-
tion and final truth of these institutions is the spirit, which is their uni-
versal purpose and conscious object. The family is, indeed, also ethical,
but its purpose is not a conscious one. In the civic community, on the
other hand, separation is the definitive feature.
264. The individuals of a multitude are spiritual beings, and have a
twofold character. In them is the extreme of the independently conscious
and willing individuality, and also the extreme of the universality, which
knows and wills what is substantive. They obtain the rights of both
these aspects, only in so far as they themselves are actual, both as pri-
vate persons and as persons substantive. One right they have directly in
the family, the other in the civic community. In these two institutions,
The Philosophy of Right/203
which implicitly universalize all particular interests, individuals have
their real self-conscious existence. And in the corporation they provide
for these particular interests a wider scope, and an activity directed to a
universal end.
265. These institutions comprise in detail the constitution, that is,
the developed and actualized rationality. They are the steadfast basis of
the state, determining the temper of individuals towards the state, and
their confidence in it. They are, moreover, the foundation- stones of
public freedom, because in them particular freedom, becomes realized
in a rational form. They thus involve an intrinsic union of freedom and
necessity.
Addition.—It has been already remarked that both the sanctity of
marriage, and also the institutions, in which the ethical character of the
civic community makes its appearance, constitute the stability of the
whole. The universal is the concern of every particular person. Every-
thing depends on the law of reason being thoroughly incorporated with
the law of particular freedom. My particular end thus becomes identical
with the universal. In any other case the state is a mere castle in the air.
In the general self-consciousness of individuals the state is actual, and
in the identity of particularity and universality it has its stability. It has
often been said that the end of the state is the happiness of the citizens.
That is indeed true. If it is not well with them, if their subjective aim is
not satisfied, if they find that the state as such is not the medium through
which comes their satisfaction, the state stands upon an insecure foot-
ing.
266. But spirit is realized and becomes its own object, not only as
this necessity and as a kingdom of appearances, but as their ideality or
inner being. Substantive universality is thus an object and end for itself,
and necessity assumes the form of freedom.
267. By the necessity, which lies within this ideality, is meant the
development of the idea within itself. As subjective substantiality the
idea is a political temper of mind, and in distinction from this it, as
objective, is the organism of the state, i.e., the strictly political state,
and its constitution.
Addition.—The unity of the freedom, which knows and wills itself,
exists in the first instance as necessity. Here the substantive is found as
the subjective existence of individuals. But there is a second necessity,
and that is the organism. In this case spirit is a process within itself,
makes within itself distinctions, divides itself into organic members,
204/G. W. F. Hegel
through which it passes in living circulation.
268. Political disposition, or, in general terms, patriotism, may be
defined as the assurance which stands on truth, and the will which has
become a custom. Mere subjective assurance does not proceed out of
truth, and is only opinion. Genuine patriotism is simply a result of the
institutions which subsist in the state as in the actuality of reason. Hence,
patriotic feeling is operative in the act, which is in accord with these
institutions. Political sentiment is, in general, a confidence, which may
pass over into a more or less intelligent insight; it is a consciousness that
ray substantive and particular interest is contained and preserved in the
interest and end of another, here the state, in its relation to me, the indi-
vidual. Wherefore the state is for me forthwith not another, and I in this
consciousness am free.
Note.—By patriotic feeling is frequently understood merely a readi-
ness to submit to exceptional sacrifices or do exceptional acts. But in
reality it is the sentiment which arises in ordinary circumstances and
ways of life, and is wont to regard the commonweal as its substantive
basis and end. This consciousness is kept intact in the routine of life,
and upon it the readiness to submit to exceptional effort is based. But as
men would rather be magnanimous than merely right, they easily per-
suade themselves that they possess this extraordinary patriotism, in or-
der to spare themselves the burden of the true sentiment, and to excuse
the lack of it. If this feeling be regarded as something, which provides
its own beginning, and can proceed out of subjective imaginations and
thoughts, it is con. founded with mere opinion, and in that case is devoid
of its true basis in objective reality.
Addition.—Uneducated men delight in surface-reasonings and fault-
findings. Fault-finding is an easy matter but hard is it to know the good
and its inner necessity. Education always begins with fault-finding, but
when full and complete sees in everything the positive. In the case of
religion one may say off-hand that this or that is superstition, but it is
infinitely harder to conceive of the truth involved in it. Political senti-
ment, as a mere appearance, is also to be distinguished from what men
truly will. They will in fact the real matter, but they holdfast to bits, and
delight in the vanity of making improvements. Men trust in the stability
of the state, and suppose that in it only the particular interest can come
into being. But. custom makes invisible that upon which our whole ex-
istence turns. If any one goes safe through the streets at night, it does not
occur to him that it could be otherwise. The habit of feeling secure has
The Philosophy of Right/205
become a second nature, and we do not reflect that it is first brought
about by the agency of special institutions. Often it is imagined that
force holds the state together, but the binding cord is nothing else than
the deep-seated feeling of order, which is possessed by all.
269. Political disposition is given definite content by the different
phases of the organism of the state. This organism is the development of
the idea into its differences, which are objectively actualized. These dif-
ferences are the different functions, affairs, and activities of state. By
means of them the universal uninterruptedly produces itself, by a pro-
cess which is a necessary one, since these various offices proceed from
the nature of the conception, The universal is, however, none the less
self-contained, since it is already presupposed in its own productive
process. This organism is the political constitution.
Addition.—The state is an organism or the development of the idea
into its differences. These different sides are the different functions, af-
fairs and activities of state by means of which the universal unceasingly
produces itself by a necessary process. At the same time it is self- con-
tained, since it is presupposed in its own productive activity. This or-
ganism is the political constitution. It proceeds eternally out of the state,
just as the state in turn is self-contained by means of the constitution. If
these two things fall apart, and make the different aspects independent,
the unity produced by the constitution is no longer established. The true
relation is illustrated by the fable of the belly and the limbs. Although
the parts of an organism do not constitute an identity, yet it is of such a
nature that, if one of its parts makes itself independent, all must be
harmed. We cannot by means of predicates, propositions, etc., reach
any right, estimate of the state, which should be apprehended as an
organism. It is much the same with the state as with the nature of God,
who cannot be through predicates conceived, whose life rather is within
itself and must be perceived.
270. (1) The abstract actuality or substantiality of the state consists
in this, that the end pursued by the state is the general interest, which,
being the substance of all particular interests, includes the preservation
of them also. (2) But the actuality of the state is also the necessity of the
state, since it breaks up into the various distinctions of state-activity,
which are implied in the conception. By means of the state’s substanti-
ality these distinctions become real and tangible as the different public
offices. (3) This substantiality, when thoroughly permeated by educa-
tion, is the spirit which knows and wills itself. Hence, what the state
206/G. W. F. Hegel
wills it knows, and knows it in its universality as that which is thought
out. The state works and acts in obedience to conscious ends, known
principles and laws, which are not merely implied, but expressly before
its consciousness. So, too, it works with a definite knowledge of all the
actual circumstances and relations, to which the acts refer.
Note.—We must here touch upon the relation of the state to reli-
gion. In modern times it is often repeated that religion is the foundation
of the state, and accompanying this assertion is the dogmatic claim that
outside of religion nothing remains to political science. Now, no asser-
tion can be more confusing. Indeed, it exalts confusion to the place of an
essential element in the constitution of the state, and of a necessary form
of knowledge.—In the first place it may seem suspicious that religion is
principally commended and resorted to in times of public distress, dis-
turbance, and oppression; it is thought to furnish consolation against
wrong, and the hope of compensation in the case of loss. A proof of
religious feeling is considered to be indifference to worldly affairs and
to the course and tenor of actual life. But the state is the spirit, as it
abides in the world. To refer people to religion is far from calculated to
exalt the interest and business of the state into a really earnest purpose.
On the contrary, state concerns are held to be a matter of pure caprice,
and are therefore rejected. The ground for this step is that in the state
only the purposes of passion and unlawful power prevail, or that reli-
gion, when taken by itself, is sufficient to control and decide what is
right. It would surely be regarded as a bitter jest if those who were
oppressed by any despotism were referred to the consolations of reli-
gion; nor is it to be forgotten that religion may assume the form of a
galling superstition, involving the most abject servitude, and the degra-
dation of man below the level of the brute. Amongst the Egyptians and
Hindoos animals are revered as higher creatures than man. Such a fact
leads us to observe that we cannot speak of religion in general, and that
when it assumes certain forms security must be found against it in some
power which will guarantee the rights of reason and self-consciousness.
But the ultimate judgment upon the connection of religion with the
state is obtained only when we go back to their conception. Religion has
as its content absolute truth, and, therefore, also the highest kind of
feeling. Religion, as intuition, feeling, or imaginative thought, the object
of whose activity is God, the unlimited basis and cause of all things,
advances the claim that everything should be apprehended in reference
to it, and in it should receive its confirmation, justification, and certi-
The Philosophy of Right/207
tude. By this relation state and laws, as well as duties, attain for con-
sciousness to their highest verification and most binding power, since
they, as a determinate reality, pass up into and rest upon a higher sphere.
(See “Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences.”) For this reason in
all the changes and chances of life religion preserves the consciousness
of the unchanging and of the highest freedom and contentment.[
12
Religion, so interpreted, is the foundation of the ethical system, and
contains the nature of the state as the divine will; yet it is only the foun-
dation. This is the point at which state and religion separate. The state is
the divine will as a present spirit, which unfolds itself in the actual shape
of an organized world.
They who adhere to the form of religion, as opposed to the state,
conduct themselves like persons who in knowledge think that they are
right when they cling to a mere abstract essence and never proceed to
reality, or like those who will only the abstract good, and arbitrarily
postpone deciding what in fact is good (§140, note). Religion is the
relation to the absolute in the form of feeling, imagination, faith; and
within its all-embracing circumference everything is merely accidental
and transient. If this form is obstinately maintained to be the only real
and valid determination for the state, the state, as an organization devel-
oped into stable differences, laws, and regulations, is handed over as
booty to feebleness, uncertainty, and disorder. By enveloping everything
definite this vague form becomes a subjective principle. In contrast with
it, ‘the laws, instead of having validity and self-subsistence as the objec-
tive and universal, are counted as something merely negative. There
result the following practical maxims: “The righteous man is not sub-
ject to law; only be pious and you may do what you please; you may
yield to your own arbitrary will and passion, and direct those, who suf-
fer harm by your acts, to the comfort and hope of religion, or you may
brand them as irreligious.” But this negative relation sometimes refuses
to remain merely an inner sentiment, and makes itself felt in external
reality. There then arises the form of religious fanaticism, which, like
political fanaticism, regards all state-management and lawful order as
restrictive barriers, and discards them as unsuited to the inner life and
infinitude of feeling. It banishes private property, marriage, and the re-
lations and tasks of the civic community, as unworthy of love and of the
freedom of feeling. But since in daily walk and action decision must be
made, then here, as is always the case with the subjective will, whose
subjectivity is aware of itself as absolute (§140), the decision proceeds
208/G. W. F. Hegel
from subjective picture-thinking, that is, from opinion and arbitrary in-
clination.
In opposition to that kind of truth which wraps itself up in the sub-
jectivity of feeling and imagination, the real truth consists in the tremen-
dous transition of the inner into the outer, of the visions of reason into
reality. By this process the whole of world-history has been wrought
out, and civilized man has at length won the actuality and the conscious-
ness of a reasonable political life. There are those who, as they say, seek
the Lord, and in their untutored opinion assure themselves of possessing
all things directly. They make no effort to raise their subjective experi-
ence into a knowledge of the truth and a consciousness of objective right
and duty. From such persons can proceed nothing except abomination
and folly, and the demolition of all ethical relations. These consequences
are inevitable, if religious sentiment holds exclusively to its form, and
turns against reality and the truth, which is present in the form of the
universal, that is, of the laws.
Still, this sentiment may not invade reality. On the contrary, it may
retain its merely negative character, thus remaining something internal,
suiting itself to the laws and affairs of state, and acquiescing either with
sighs or with scorn and wishing. It is not strength, but weakness, which
has in our times made religiosity a polemic kind of piety, be it conjoined
with a true need, or with nothing but discontented vanity. Instead of
moulding one’s opinion through study, and subjecting one’s will to dis-
cipline, and thus exalting it to free obedience, it is much the cheaper
plan to take a less arduous course. We renounce all knowledge of objec-
tive truth, treasure up a feeling of oppression and pride, and claim to
possess beforehand all the holiness requisite for discerning the laws and
institutions of state, for prejudging them, and specifying what their na-
ture ought to be. The ground for this behaviour is that everything issues
from the pious heart unquestionably and infallibly. Thus, as intentions
and assertions go to religion for their support, neither by exposing their
shallowness nor their erroneousness is it possible to prevail against them.
In so far as religion is of a true sort, not displaying a negative and
hostile spirit towards the state, but rather recognizing and supporting it,
it has its own special place and station. Public worship consists in acts
and doctrine; it needs possessions and property, and likewise individu-
als devoted to the service of the congregation. Out of this arises between
church and state a relation, which it is not difficult to define. It is in the
nature of the case that the state fulfils a duty by giving assistance and
The Philosophy of Right/209
protection to the religious ends of a congregation. More than that, since
to the deepest religious feeling there is present the state as a whole, it
may fairly be demanded by the state that every individual should con-
nect himself with some congregation. Of course, with its special charac-
ter, depending on inner imaginative thinking, the state cannot interfere.
When well organized and strong, the state can afford to be liberal in this
matter, and may overlook small details affecting itself. It may even give
room within itself to congregations, whose creed prevents them from
recognizing any direct duties to it. But this concession must depend
upon the numerical strength of the sects in question. The members of
these religious bodies the state is content to leave to the laws of the civic
community, and to accept a passive fulfilment of their direct duties to it
by means of substitutes.
13
So far as the ecclesiastical body owns property, performs overt acts
of worship, and maintains individuals for this service, it leaves the inner
realm and enters that of the world. Hence it places itself directly under
the jurisdiction of the state. The oath, ethical observances generally, as
well as marriage, all carry with them the inner reconstruction and eleva-
tion of that disposition of mind which finds in religion its deepest confir-
mation. Since ethical relations are essentially relations of actual ratio-
nality, the rights of these relations are the first to be maintained in real-
ity, and to them is added ecclesiastical confirmation, simply as their
inner and more abstract side.—As to other forms of ecclesiastical com-
munion, such as doctrine, the internal is more important than the exter-
nal. The same is true of overt acts of worship and kindred matters,
whose legal side appears as independent, and belongs to the state. The
ministers and property of churches, it is true, are exempt from the power
and jurisdiction of the state. Churches have also assumed jurisdiction
over worldly persons in all matters involving the co-operation of reli-
gion, such as divorce and the administration of the oath.— In all affairs
bearing the aspects of both church and state, the political side, owing to
its nature, is ill-defined. This is observable even in relation to acts which
are wholly civic (§234). In so far as individuals, assembling for reli-
gious worship, have formed themselves into a congregation or corpora-
tion, they come under the supervision of the superior officers of state.
Doctrine has its province in conscience, and is founded upon the
right of the subjective freedom of self-consciousness. This is the inner
region, which as such does not come within the sphere of the state.
However, the state also has a doctrine, in which its regulations, and
210/G. W. F. Hegel
whatever in right, in the constitution, etc., is valid generally, exist essen-
tially in the form of thought, as law. And as the state is not a mecha-
nism, but the reasonable life of self-conscious freedom and the system
of the ethical world, so sentiment or feeling for it, and the conscious
expression) of this feeling in the form of principles, are an essential
element in the actual state. Then, again, the doctrine of the church is not
merely the edict of conscience, but in the form of doctrine is rather an
outward expression, and that, too, regarding a content, which has the
most intimate connection with ethical principles and the laws, and di-
rectly concern them. Here also church and state meet either harmoni-
ously or in opposition. The difference between the two realms may be
driven by the church to extreme antagonism. It, containing as it does the
absolute content of religion, may contemplate the spiritual element and
therefore the ethical element also, as its own, and may regard the state
as a mere mechanical scaffolding for unspiritual, external ends. It may
esteem itself as the kingdom of God or at least as the way to it and its
forecourt, and the state as the kingdom of this world, the sphere of the
transient and finite. It may count itself as end for itself, and the state as
merely a means. United with such a presumptuous attitude is the de-
mand of the church that the state should let it have its own way, and
should show to its doctrines unreserved respect, simply because they
are doctrines, no matter what the substance of them may be. The reason
advanced by the church is that the formation of doctrine is exclusively
its function. Just as the church makes this claim on the wide ground that
the spiritual has been entrusted solely to its keeping, science and knowl-
edge generally may occupy a similar position. Like the church, they
may fashion themselves into an independent, exclusive organization,
and may with even greater justice look upon themselves as filling the
place of the church. Hence would be asked for science also indepen-
dence of the state; the state would be only a means for it, while it would
be its own end.
In this connection it is unimportant whether the individuals and rep-
resentatives, who minister to the congregation, have gone the length of
secluding themselves, leaving only the congregations at large in subjec-
tion to the state, or whether they abide in the state, and withdraw only
their church character. This general position, it may first of all be ob-
served, coincides with the view that the state in its fundamentals takes
into its protection and care the life, property, and free-will of every per-
son, simply in so far as he does not injure the life, property, and free-will
The Philosophy of Right/211
of any other The state is thus considered as answering simply to our
needs. The higher spiritual element, absolute truth, is counted as subjec-
tive religiosity or theoretical science, and placed outside of the state.
The state is merely the laity, and must be absolutely respectful. That
which is peculiarly ethical falls beyond its reach. Now it is a matter of
history that there have been barbaric times and circumstances, in which
all high spiritual matters had their seat in the church, and the state was
only a worldly rule of force, lawlessness, and passion. Abstract opposi-
tion was then the main principle of actuality (§358). But it is too blind
and shallow a proceeding to consider this view as true and in accor-
dance with the idea. The development of the idea has rather demon-
strated that the spirit as free and rational is in itself ethical, that the true
idea is actualized rationality, and that this rationality exists as the state.
From this idea it is quite easy to infer that its ethical truth assumes for
the thinking consciousness a content, which is worked up into the form
of universality, and is realized as law. The state in general knows its
own ends, recognizes them with a clear consciousness, and busies itself
with them in accordance with fundamental principles.
As before remarked, religion has truth for its universal object, but
this content is merely given, and its fundamental principles are not rec-
ognized through thinking and conceptions. Thus the individual is under
an obligation, which is grounded upon authority, and the testimony of
his own spirit and heart, in which is contained the element of freedom,
takes the form of faith and feeling. But it is philosophic insight, which
clearly recognizes that church and state are not opposed to each other
on the question of truth and rationality, but differ only in form. There
were, it is true, and still are, churches, which have nothing more than a
form of public worship; but there are others, which, though in them the
form of worship is the main thing, have also doctrine and instruction.
Whenever the church takes up the point of doctrine, and deals in its
teaching with objective thought and the principles of the ethical and
rational, it passes over into the province of the state. It pronounces au-
thoritatively upon the ethical and right, upon the law and institutions,
and its utterance is believed. In contrast with faith and the authority of
the church, in contrast also with the subjective convictions which it
requires, the state is that which knows. In its principles the content does
not remain in the form of feeling and faith, but belongs to the formed
thought.
In so far as the self-caused and self-existing content makes its ap-
212/G. W. F. Hegel
pearance in religion as a particular content, namely, in the form of doc-
trines peculiar to the church as a religious community, it does not fall
within the scope of the state. In Protestantism, it may be said, there are
no clergy who are considered to be the sole depositary of church doc-
trine, because in this form of religion there is no laity. Since ethical and
political principles pass over into the realm of religion, and not only are
established, but must be established, in reference to religion, the state is
thus on the one hand furnished with religious confirmation. On the other
hand there remains to the state the right and the form of self-conscious
objective rationality, the right, that is, to maintain objective reason against
the assertions, which have their source in the subjective form of truth,
no matter what depth of certitude and authority surrounds them. Be-
cause the principle of the state’s form is universal, and hence essentially
the thought, freedom of thought and scientific investigation issue from
the state. It was a church that burnt Giordano Bruno, and forced Galileo,
who advocated the Copernican system, to recant upon his knees.[
14
Hence
science, also, has its place on the side of the state, as it has the same
element of form as the state; its end is knowledge, and indeed thought
out objective truth and rationality. Thought knowledge may, it is true,
fall from science to mere opinion, and from principles to mere reason-
ings. Applying itself to ethical objects and the organization of the state,
it may oppose their fundamental principles. This it may do with some-
thing of the same pretentious claims, as the church makes with regard to
its peculiar belongings. It may rely upon mere opining, as if it were
reason, and upon the right, advanced by subjective self-consciousness,
to be in its opinion and conviction free.
Already (§140, note) the principle of the subjectivity of knowledge
has been examined, and only a single remark need now be added. On the
one hand the state may treat with infinite indifference opinion, in so far
as it is mere opinion, and has hence a mere subjective content. This
opinion, let it plume itself to any extent it pleases, contains no true strength
or force. The state is in the position of the painter, who in his work
confines himself to the three ground colours, and may treat with indif-
ference the school-wisdom which maintains that there are seven. But
there is another side to the question. This opining of bad principles con-
stitutes itself a universal fact and corrodes actuality. It is manifested as
the formalism of unconditioned subjectivity, which would adopt as a
basis the scientific starting-point, would exalt the state- academies to
the presumptuous level of a church, and would then turn them against
The Philosophy of Right/213
the state. In opposition to this proceeding the state must take under its
protection objective truth and the principle of the ethical life; and on the
other side, in opposition to the church, which claims unlimited and un-
conditional authority, the state has to uphold as a general thing the for-
mal right of self-consciousness to its own insight, conviction, and thought
of what shall be reckoned as objective truth.
There may also be mentioned here the unity of state and church, a
union which is much canvassed in modern times, and praised as the
highest ideal. If the essential unity of these two is the unity of true prin-
ciples with sentiment, it is also essential that along with this unity should
come into specific existence the difference, which is in the form of their
consciousness. In an oriental despotism there already exists the so fre-
quently wished for unity of church and state. Yet in it the state is not
present, at least not that self-conscious form of it, which is alone worthy
of spirit and includes right, free ethical life and organic development. If
the state is to have reality as the ethical self-conscious realization of
spirit, it must be distinguished front the form of authority and faith. But
this distinction arises only in so far a.s the ecclesiastical side is in itself
divided into separate churches. Then only is the state seen to be superior
to them, and wins and brings into existence the universality of thought
as the principle of its form. To understand this we must know what
universality is, not only in itself, but also in its existence. It is far from
being a weakness or misfortune for the state that the church has been
divided. Only through this division lias the state been able to develop its
true character, and become a self-conscious, rational, and ethical real-
ity. This division was an event of the happiest augury, telling in behalf
of the freedom and rationality of the church, and also in behalf of the
freedom and rationality of thought.
Addition.—The state is real. Its reality consists in its realizing the
interest of the whole in particular ends. Actuality is always the unity of
universality and particularity. Universality exists piecemeal in particu-
larity. Each side appears as if self-sufficient, although it is upheld and
sustained only in the whole. In so far as this unity is absent, the thing is
unrealized, even though existence may be predicated of it. A bad state is
one which merely exists. A sick body also exists, but it has no true
reality. A hand, which is cut off, still looks like a hand and exists, though
it is not real. True reality is necessity. What is real is in itself necessary.
Necessity consists in this, that the whole is broken up into the differ-
ences contained in the conception. Then, as so broken up, it furnishes a
214/G. W. F. Hegel
fast and enduring character, not that of the fossil, but of that which in
giving itself up always begets itself anew.
To the complete state essentially belong consciousness and thought.
Hence the state knows what it wills, and knows it as something thought.
Since consciousness has its seat only in the state, science has its place
also there, and not in the church. In despite of that, much has in modern
times been said to the effect that the state has sprung into existence out
of religion. The state is the developed spirit, and exhibits its elements in
the daylight of consciousness. Owing to the fact that what lies in the
idea walks forth into visible being, the state appears to be something
finite, whose province is of this world, while religion represents itself as
the realm of the infinite. Thus, the state seems to be subordinate, need-
ing, since the finite cannot subsist by itself, the basis of the church. As
finite, it is thought to have no verification, and only in and through
religion to become holy and appertain to the infinite. But this version of
the matter is highly onesided. The state is certainly in its essence of the
world and finite, having particular ends and functions. But its being
worldly is only one side of it. Only to a perception, which is void of
spirit, is the state merely finite. The state has a vital soul, and this vital-
izing power is subjectivity, which both creates distinctions and yet pre-
serves their unity. In the kingdom of religion there are also distinctions
and finitudes. God is triune. Thus there are three determinations, whose
unity alone is the spirit. If we would apprehend in a concrete way the
divine nature, we do so only through distinctions. In the divine kingdom
as in the worldly occur limits, and it is a one-sided view to say that the
worldly spirit or the state is merely finite, for reality is nothing irratio-
nal. A bad state is indeed purely finite and worldly, but the rational state
is in itself infinite.
Secondly, it is said that the state must accept its justification from
religion. The idea, as present in religion, is spirit in the inner condition
of feeling, but this same idea it is which gives itself worldliness in the
state, and procures for itself in consciousness and will an outward place
and reality. If we say that the state must be grounded on religion, we
mean only that the state must rest upon and proceed from rationality.
But this sentence can be understood wrongly to mean that when the
spirit of man is bound by a religion which is not free, he is most adroitly
brought to political obedience. The Christian religion, however, is the
religion of freedom. Yet even Christianity may be infected by supersti-
tion, and converted into an instrument of bondage. Thus, the doctrine
The Philosophy of Right/215
that the state should be founded on religion is perverted, when it is inter-
preted to mean that individuals must have religion in order that their
spirit, enchained by it, may be the more readily oppressed in the state.
But if we mean that reverence should be felt for the state as the whole,
of which individuals are the branches, this feeling flows most easily
from philosophic insight into the nature of the state, although if that
insight should be lacking, religious sentiment may lead to the same re-
sult. So the state may need religion and faith. It yet remains essentially
distinguished from religion in that its commands are a legal duty, it
being a matter of indifference in what spirit the duty is performed, while
the empire of religion, on the contrary, is the internal. Just as the state, if
it were to make such a claim as religion makes, would endanger the
right of the inner mind, so the church degenerates into a tyrannical reli-
gion, if it acts as a state and imposes punishments.
A third distinction, related to the foregoing, is that the content of
religion is and remains veiled; feeling, sensibility, and fancy are the
ground on which it is built, and on this ground everything has the form
of subjectivity. The state, on the other hand, actualizes itself, and gives
its phases a solid reality. If religiosity were to insist upon making itself
good within the state, as it is wont to do in its own territory, it would
overturn the political organization. Each several distinction has a broad
and fair field in the state, while in religion everything is always referred
to the totality. If this totality were to seize upon all the political rela-
tions, it would be fanaticism. It would be bent upon having the whole in
every particular part, and could not accomplish its desire except by the
destruction of the particular. Fanaticism will not allow particular differ-
ences to have their way. The expression, “The pious are subject to no
law,” is nothing more than the decree of fanaticism. Piety, when it re-
places the state, cannot tolerate that which is definitely constituted and
destroys it. A kindred type of mind is shown by him who permits con-
science or internality to judge, and does not decide on general grounds.
This internality does not in its development proceed to principles, and
gives itself no justification. If piety is counted as the reality of the state,
all laws are cast to the winds, and subjective feeling legislates. This
feeling may be nothing but caprice, and yet this cannot be ascertained
except by its acts. But in so far as it becomes acts or commands, it
assumes the shape of laws, and is directly opposed to subjective feeling.
God, who is the object of this feeling, may also be regarded as a being
who determines. But God is the universal idea, and is in feeling the
216/G. W. F. Hegel
undetermined, which is not mature enough to determine what actually
exists in a developed form in the state. The fact that everything in the
state is firm and secure is a bulwark against caprice and positive opin-
ion. So religion, as such, ought not to rule.
271. The political constitution is (1) the organization of the state
and the process of its organic life in reference to its own self. In this
process the state distinguishes within itself its elements, and unfolds
them into self-subsistence.
(2) It is a single, exclusive individuality, and as such is related to
another. It turns its distinctive features towards foreign states, and in so
doing establishes its self-subsisting distinctions within itself in their ide-
ality.
Addition.—Just as irritability in the living organism is in one of its
phases something internal, belonging to the organism, as such, so here
also the reference to foreign states has a bearing upon what is within.
The internal state as such is the civil power; the direction outwards is
the military power, which, however, has a definite side within the state
itself. To balance both phases is one of the chief matters of statesman-
ship. Sometimes the civil power has been wholly extinguished, and rests
only upon the military power, as happened during the time of the Roman
emperors and Pretorian Guards. Sometimes, as in modern days, the
military power proceeds only out of the civil power, as when all citizens
are bound to bear arms.
I. Internal Constitution.
272. The constitution is rational in so far as the active working divisions
of the state are in accord with the nature of the conception. This occurs
when every one of its functions is in itself the totality, in the sense that it
effectually contains the other elements. These elements, too, though ex-
pressing the distinctions of the conception, remain strictly within its
ideality, and constitute one individual whole.
Note.—Concerning the constitution, as concerning reason itself, there
has in modern times been an endless babble, which has in Germany
been more insipid than anywhere else. With us there are those who have
persuaded themselves that it is best even at the very threshold of govern-
ment to understand before all other things what a constitution is. And
they think that they have furnished invincible proof that religion and
piety should be the basis of all their shallowness. It is small wonder if
this prating has made for reasonable mortals the words reason, illumi-
The Philosophy of Right/217
nation, right, constitution, liberty, mere empty sounds, and men should
have become ashamed to talk about a political constitution. At least as
one effect of this superfluity, we may hope to see the conviction becom-
ing general, that a philosophic acquaintance with such topics cannot
proceed from mere reasonings, ends, grounds, and utilities, much less
from feeling, love, and inspiration, but only out of the conception. It
will be a fortunate thing, too, if those who maintain the divine to be
inconceivable and an acquaintance with the truth to be wasted effort,
were henceforth to refrain from breaking in upon the argument. What of
undigested rhetoric and edification they manufacture out of these feel-
ings can at least lay no claim to philosophic notice.
Amongst current ideas must be mentioned, in connection with §269,
that regarding the necessary division of the functions of the state. This
is a most important feature, which, when taken in its true sense, is rightly
regarded as the guarantee of public freedom. But of this those, who
think to speak out of inspiration and love, neither know nor will know
anything, for in it lies the element of determination through the way of
reason. The principle of the separation of functions contains the essen-
tial element of difference, that is to say, of real rationality. But as appre-
hended by the abstract understanding it is false when it leads to the view
that these several functions are absolutely independent, and it is one-
sided when it considers the relation of these functions to one another as
negative and mutually limiting. In such a view each function in hostility
to or fear of the others acts towards them as towards an evil. Each
resolves to oppose the others, effecting by this opposition of forces a
general balance, it may be, but not a living unity. But the internal self-
direction of the conception, and not any other purpose or utility, con-
tains the absolute source of the different functions. On their account
alone the political organization exists as intrinsically rational and as the
image of eternal reason.
From logic, though indeed not of the accepted kind, we know how
the conception, and in a concrete way the idea, determine themselves of
themselves, and thereby abstractly set up their phases of universality,
particularity, and individuality. To take the negative as the point of de-
parture, and set up as primary the willing of evil and consequent mis-
trust, and then on this supposition cunningly to devise breakwaters, which
in turn require other breakwaters to check their activity, any such con-
trivance is the mark of a thought, which is at the level of the negative
understanding, and of a feeling, which is characteristic of the rabble
218/G. W. F. Hegel
(§244).—The functions of the state, the executive and the legislative, as
they are called, may be made independent of each other. The state is,
then, forthwith overthrown, an occurrence which we have witnessed on
a vast scale. Or, in so far as the state is essentially self-contained, the
struggle of one function to bring the other into subjection effects some-
how or other a closer unity, and thus preserves only what is in the state
essential and fundamental.
Addition.—In the state we must have nothing which is not an ex-
pression of rationality. The state is the world, which the spirit has made
for itself. Hence it has a definite self-begun and self- related course.
Often we speak of the wisdom of God in nature, but we must not there-
fore believe that the physical world of nature is higher than the world of
spirit. Just so high as the spirit stands above nature, the state stands
above the physical life. We must hence honour the state as the divine on
earth, and learn that if it is difficult to conceive of nature, it is infinitely
harder to apprehend the state. That we in modern times have attained
definite views concerning the state in general, and are perpetually en-
gaged in speaking about and manufacturing constitutions, is a fact of
much importance. But that does not settle the whole matter. It is neces-
sary further that we approach a reasonable question in the mind of ra-
tional beings, that we know what is essential, and distinguish it from
what is merely striking. Thus, the functions of the state must indeed be
distinguished; and yet each must of itself form a whole, and also contain
the other elements. When we speak of the distinctive activity of any
function, we must not fall into the egregious error of supposing that it
should exist in abstract independence, since it should rather be distin-
guished merely as an element of the conception. If the distinctions were
to subsist in abstract independence, it is as clear as light that two inde-
pendent things are not able to constitute a unity, but must rather intro-
duce strife. As a result, either the whole world would be cast into disor-
der, or the unity would be restored by force. Thus, in the French Revo-
lution at one time the legislative function had swallowed up the execu-
tive, at another time the executive had usurped the legislative function.
It would be stupid in such a case to present the moral claim of harmony,
If we cast the responsibility of the matter upon feeling, we have indeed
got rid of the whole trouble. But, necessary as ethical feeling is; it can-
not evolve from itself the functions of state. Whence it comes to pass
that since the definite functions are the whole implicitly, they comprise
in their actual existence the total conception. We usually speak of the
The Philosophy of Right/219
three functions of state, the legislative, executive, and judicial. The leg-
islative corresponds to universality, and the executive to particularity;
but the judicial is not the third element of the conception. The individu-
ality uniting the other two lies beyond these spheres.
273. The political state is divided into three substantive branches:
(a) The power to fix and establish the universal. This is legislation.
(b) The power, which brings particular spheres and individual cases
under the universal. This is the function of government.
(c) The function of the prince, as the subjectivity with which rests
the final decision. In this function the other two are brought into an
individual unity. It is at once the culmination and beginning of the whole.
This is constitutional monarchy.
Note.—The perfecting of the state into a constitutional monarchy is
the work of the modern world, in which the substantive idea has attained
the infinite form. This is the descent of the spirit of the world into itself,
the free perfection by virtue of which the idea sets loose from itself its
own elements, and nothing but its own elements, and makes them totali-
ties; at the same time it holds them within the unity of the conception, in
which is found their real rationality. The story of this true erection of the
ethical life is the subject matter of universal world-history.
The old classification of constitutions into monarchy, aristocracy,
and democracy is based upon the substantive unity which has not yet
been divided. This unity has no internal distinctions, is not an intrinsi-
cally developed organization, and has not attained depth and concrete
rationality. From the standpoint of the ancient world the classification is
correct, because the unity of the ancient state was a substantive whole,
not as yet fully mature and unfolded. The distinctions predicated of it
must hence be external, and refer merely to the number of persons in
whom this substantive unity should find an abode. But these various
forms of the state, which belong in this way to different wholes, are in
constitutional monarchy lowered to their proper place as elements. In
monarchy we have a single person, in its executive several, in legisla-
tion the multitude. But, as we have said, such merely quantitative dis-
tinctions are superficial, and do not account for the conception. Simi-
larly, it is not to the point to speak so much as we do of the democratic
or aristocratic element in the monarchy for the phases, described by
these terms, just in so far as they occur in a monarchy, are no longer
democratic and aristocratic.
It is thought by some that the state is a mere abstraction which
220/G. W. F. Hegel
orders and commands, and that it may be left undecided, or be regarded
as a trifle, whether one or several or all stand in the chief place in the
state.—“All these forms,” says Fichte (“Naturrecht,” Pt. I., p. 196),
“are right, and can produce and preserve universal right, if only there be
present an ephorat.” The ephorat was invented by Fichte, and defined as
a needful counterpoise to the highest power. Such a view springs from a
shallow conception of the state. It is true, indeed, that in a primitive
condition of society these distinctions have little or no meaning. So Moses,
when giving rules to the people in the case of their choosing a king,
made no other alteration in the institutions than to command that the
king’s horses and wives should not be too numerous, or his treasure of
gold and silver too large (Deut. xvii. 16, and fol.).— Further, it is true
that in one sense these three forms are even for the idea a matter of no
concern. I mean monarchy in its limited and exclusive signification, in
accordance with which it stands by the side of democracy and aristoc-
racy. But such a remark has a meaning the opposite of Fichte’s. It would
mean that these forms are a matter of indifference, because they collec-
tively are not in accordance with the idea in its rational development
(§272); nor can the idea in any one of them attain its right and actuality.
Hence, it is idle to ask which of these forms is to be preferred. We speak
of them now as having only an historical interest.
Here, as in so many other places, must be recognized the penetrat-
ing vision of Montesquieu, who discusses this question in his celebrated
description of the principles of these forms of government. But this de-
scription we must not misunderstand, if we are to do it justice. He, as is
well known, stated that virtue was the principle of democracy. Democ-
racy does in fact rest upon sentiment as upon a form which is merely
substantive. And it is still under this form that the rationality of the
absolute will exists in democracy. But he goes on to say that England in
the seventeenth century proved by a beautiful spectacle that its efforts
to found a democracy were unavailing owing to a lack of virtue in the
leaders. And he adds that, when in a republic virtue disappears, ambi-
tion seizes upon those whose minds are capable of it, and greed seizes
upon all, and the state, becoming a general prey, maintains its strength
only through the power of some individuals and the extravagance of all.
Upon this view it must be remarked that when society becomes civi-
lized, and the powers of particularity are developed and freed, the virtue
of the rulers is not enough. Not mere sentiment, but the form of rational
law is required, if the whole is to be able to keep itself together, and give
The Philosophy of Right/221
to the developed powers of particularity the right to expand positively
as well as negatively.
Similarly should be set aside the misconception that, since in a demo-
cratic republic the sentiment of virtue is the substantive form, it is want-
ing, or at least unnecessary, in a monarchy; and also the misconception
that the legally constituted agencies of a systematized organization are
opposed to and incompatible with virtue.
Moderation, or the principle of aristocracy, implies the incipient
separation of public power and private interest. And yet these two are
here in such close contact that aristocracy is always by its very nature
on the verge of passing into the severest form of tyranny or anarchy, and
so bringing on itself destruction. Witness Roman history.
Montesquieu, by crediting monarchy with the principle of honour,
refers, it is clear, not to the patriarchal or any of the ancient monarchies,
nor, on the other side, to the monarchy which has developed into an
objective constitution, but to a feudal monarchy, in which the relations
of political right to lawful private property and the privileges of indi-
viduals and corporations are confirmed. Since in this form of constitu-
tion state-life depends upon privileged persons, in whose liking is laid a
large part of what must be done for the maintenance of the state, the
objective element of these transactions is grounded not on duty but on
imaginative thought and opinion. Thus, instead of duty it is only honour
which keeps the state together.
Here it is natural to put a second question:—Who shall frame the
constitution? This question seems intelligible at first glance, but on closer
examination turns out to be meaningless. It presupposes that no consti-
tution exists, but merely a collection of atomic individuals. How a heap
of individuals is to obtain a constitution, whether by its own efforts or
by means of others, whether by goodness, thought, or force, must be left
to itself to decide, for with a mere mass the conception has nothing to
do. If the question, however, takes for granted the existence of an actual
constitution, then to make a constitution means only to modify it, the
previous existence of the constitution implying that any change must be
made constitutionally. But it is strictly essential that the constitution,
though it is begotten in time, should not be contemplated as made. It is
rather to be thought of as above and beyond what is made, as self-
begotten and self-centred, as divine and perpetual.
Addition.—The principle of the modern world as a whole is free-
dom of subjectivity, the principle that all essential aspects of the spiri-
222/G. W. F. Hegel
tual whole should attain their right by self- development. From this stand-
point one can hardly raise the idle question, as to which form is the
better, monarchy or democracy. We venture to reply simply that the
forms of all constitutions of the state are one-sided, if they are not able
to contain the principle of free subjectivity, and do not know how to
correspond to completed reason.
274. Spirit is real only in what it knows itself to be. The state,
which is the nation’s spirit, is the law which permeates all its relations,
ethical observances, and the consciousness of its individuals. Hence the
constitution of a people depends mainly on the kind and character of its
self-consciousness. In it are found both its subjective freedom and the
actuality of the constitution.
Note.—To think of giving to a people a consitution a priori is a
whim, overlooking precisely that element which renders a constitution
something more than a product of thought. Every nation, therefore, has
the constitution which suits it and belongs to it.
Addition.—The state must in its constitution penetrate all its as-
pects. Napoleon insisted upon giving to the Spanish a constitution a
priori, but the project failed. A constitution is not a mere manufacture,
but the work of centuries. It is the idea and the consciousness of what is
reasonable, in so far as it is developed in a people. Hence no constitu-
tion is merely created. That which Napoleon gave to the Spanish was
more rational than what they had before, yet they viewed it as some-
thing foreign to them, and rejected it because they were not sufficiently
developed. In a constitution a people must embody their sense of right
and reproduce their conditions. Otherwise the constitution may exist
externally, but it has no significance or truth. Often, indeed, the need of
and longing for a better constitution may arise in individuals, but that is
different from the whole multitude’s being saturated by such a notion.
This general conviction comes later. The principle of morality and inner
conviction advocated by Socrates came of necessity into being in his
day; but time had to elapse before it could reach general self- conscious-
ness.
A. The Function of the Prince.
275. The function of the prince contains of itself the three elements of
the totality (§272), (1) the universality of the constitution and the laws;
(2) counsel, or reference of the particular to the universal; and (3) the
final decision, or the self-determination, into which all else returns and
The Philosophy of Right/223
from which it receives the beginning of its actuality. This absolute self-
determination, constituting the distinguishing principle of the princely
function, as such, must be the first to be considered.
Addition.—We begin with the princely function or the factor of in-
dividuality, because in it the three phases of the state are inter-related as
a totality. The I is at once the most individual and the most universal.
The individual occurs also in nature, but there reality is equal to non-
ideality, and its parts exist externally to one another. Hence it is not self-
complete existence; in it the different individualities subsist side by side.
In spirit, on the other hand, all differences exist only as ideal or as a
unity. The state as spiritual is the interpretation of all its elements, but
individuality is at the same time the soul, the vital and sovereign prin-
ciple, which embraces all differences.
276. (1) The basal principle of the political state is the substantive
unity, which is the ideality of its elements, (a) In this ideality the particu-
lar functions and offices of the state are just as much dissolved as re-
tained. Indeed, they are retained only as having no independent author-
ity, but such and so extensive an authority as is yielded them in the idea
of the whole. They proceed, therefore, from the power of the state, and
are the flexible limbs of the state as of their own simplified self.
Addition.—This ideality of elements is like the life of an organized
body. Life exists in every part. There is but one life in all points, and
there is no opposition to it. Any part separated from it is dead. Such is
also the ideality of all individual occupations, functions, and corpora-
tions, great as may be their impulse to subsist and do for themselves. It
is as in the organism, where the stomach assumes independence, and yet
is at the same time superseded and sacrificed by becoming a member of
one whole.
277. (
b) The particular offices and agencies of the state, being its
essential elements, are intimately connected with it. To the individuals,
who manage and control them, they are attached in virtue not of their
direct personality but of their objective and universal qualities. With
particular personality, as such, they are joined only externally and acci-
dentally. The business and functions of the state cannot therefore be
private property.
Addition.—The agencies of the state are attached to individuals,
who nevertheless are not authorized to discharge their offices through
natural fitness, but by reason of their objective qualification. Capacity,
skill, character, belong to the particularity of the individual, who must,
224/G. W. F. Hegel
however, be adapted to his special business by education and training.
An office can, therefore, be neither sold nor bequeathed. Formerly in
France seats in parliament were saleable, and this is still the case with
any position of officer in the English army below a certain grade. These
facts depended, or depend, upon the mediaeval constitution of certain
states, and are now gradually vanishing.
278. These two characteristics, namely (
b) that the particular of-
fices and functions of the state have independent and firm footing nei-
ther in themselves, nor in the particular will of individuals, but (
a) ulti-
mately in the unity of the state as in their simple self, constitute the
sovereignty of the state.
Note.—This is sovereignty on its inner side. It has an outer side
also, as we shall see.—In the older feudal monarchy the state had an
outer aspect, but on its inner side not only was the monarch at no time
sovereign, but neither was the state. Partly were the several offices and
functions of the state and civic life dispersed in independent corpora-
tions and communities (§273, note), while the whole was rather an ag-
gregate than an organism. Partly, too, were these functions the private
property of individuals who, when it was proposed that they should act,
consulted their own opinion and wish.
The idealism, which constitutes sovereignty, is that point of view in
accordance with which the so-called parts of an animal organism are
not parts but members or organic elements. Their isolation or indepen-
dent subsistence would be disease. The same principle occurs in the
abstract conception of the will (see note to next §) as the negativity,
which by referring itself to itself reaches a universality, which definitely
moulds itself into individuality (§7). Into this concrete universality all
particularity and definiteness are taken up, and receive a new signifi-
cance. It is the absolute self-determining ground. To apprehend it we
must be at home with the conception in its true substance and subjectiv-
ity.
Because sovereignty is the ideality of all particular powers, it easily
gives rise to the common misconception, which takes it to be mere force,
empty wilfulness, and a synonym for despotism. But despotism is a
condition of lawlessness, in which the particular will, whether of mon-
arch or people (ochlocracy) counts as law, or rather instead of law.
Sovereignty, on the contrary, constitutes the element of the ideality of
particular spheres and offices, in a condition which is lawful and consti-
tutional. No particular sphere is independent and self-sufficient in its
The Philosophy of Right/225
aims and methods of working. It does not immerse itself in its own
separate vocation. On the contrary, its aims are led by and dependent
upon the aim of the whole, an aim which has been named in general
terms and indefinitely the well-being of the state.
This ideality is manifested in a twofold way. (1) In times of peace
the particular spheres and businesses go their way of satisfying their
particular offices and ends. According to mere unconscious necessity
self-seeking here veers round to a contribution in behalf of mutual pres-
ervation and the preservation of the whole (§183). But, also, through a
direct influence from above is it that these employments are continually
brought back and limited by the aim of the whole (see “Function of
Government,” §289), and led to make direct efforts for its preservation.
(2) In circumstances of distress, internal or external, the organism con-
sisting of its particulars, comes together into the simple conception of
sovereignty, to which is intrusted the safety of the state, even at the
sacrifice of what is at other times justifiable. It is here that idealism
attains its peculiar realization (§321).
279. (2) Sovereignty, at first only the universal thought of this ide-
ality, exists merely as a subjectivity assured of itself, and as the abstract
and so far groundless self-direction and ultimate decision of the will; by
virtue of this quality the state is individual and one. But in the next place
subjectivity exists in its truth only as a subject, and personality as a
person. In the constitution, which has matured into rational reality, each
of the three elements of the conception has its own independent, real,
and separate embodiment. Hence, the element which implies absolute
decision is not individuality in general but one individual, the monarch.
Note.—The internal development of a science, whose whole content
is deduced out of the simple conception—the only method which is de-
serving of the name philosophic,— reveals the peculiarity that one and
the same conception, here the will, which at the beginning is abstract
because it is the beginning, yet contains itself, condenses of itself its
own characteristics, and in this way acquires a concrete content. Thus it
is fundamental in the personality, which is at first in simple right ab-
stract. It then develops itself through the different forms of subjectivity,
and at last in absolute right, the state or the complete, concrete objectiv-
ity of the will, attains to the personality of the state and its conscious
assurance of itself. This final term gives to all particularities a new form
by taking them up into its pure self. It ceases to hesitate between reasons
pro and con., and deciding by an “I will,” initiates all action and reality.
226/G. W. F. Hegel
Personality, further, or subjectivity generally, as infinite and self-
referring, has truth only as a person or independent subject. This inde-
pendent existence must be one, and the truth which it has is of the most
direct or immediate kind. The personality of the state is actualized only
as a person, the monarch.—Personality expresses the conception as such,
while person contains also the actuality of the conception. Hence the
conception becomes the idea or truth, only when it receives this addi-
tional character.—A so-called moral person, a society, congregation, or
family, be it as concrete as it may, possesses personality only as an
element and abstractly. It has not reached the truth of its existence. But
the state is this very totality, in which the moments of the conception
gain reality in accordance with their peculiar truth.—All these phases
of the idea have been already explained, both in their abstract and in
their concrete forms, in the course of this treatise. Here, however, they
need to be repeated, because we, while easily admitting them piecemeal
in their particular forms, do not so readily recognise and apprehend
them in their true place as elements of the idea.
The conception of monarch offers great difficulty to abstract rea-
sonings and to the reflective methods of the understanding. The under-
standing never gets beyond isolated determinations, and ascribes merit
to mere reasons, or finite points of view and what can be derived from
them. Thus the dignity of the monarch is represented as something de-
rivative not only in its form but also in its essential character. But the
conception of the monarch is not derivative, but purely self-originated.
Akin to this mistaken notion is the idea that the right of the monarch is
based upon and receives its unconditional nature from divine authority.
The misconceptions that are allied to this idea are well-known; besides,
philosophy sets itself the task of conceiving the divine.
The phrase “sovereignty of the people,” can be used in the sense
that a people is in general self-dependent in its foreign relations, and
constitutes its own state. Such are the people of Great Britain, for ex-
ample. But the people of England, Scotland, Ireland, Venice, Genoa, or
Ceylon, have ceased to be a sovereign people, since they no longer have
independent princes, and the chief government is not exclusively their
own. Further, it may be said that internal sovereignty resides in the
people if, as was already pointed out (§§277–278), we speak in general
terms, and mean that sovereignty accrues to the whole state. But the
sovereignty of the people is usually in modern times opposed to the
sovereignty of the monarch. This view of the sovereignty of the people
The Philosophy of Right/227
may be traced to a confused idea of what is meant by “the people.” The
people apart from their monarch, and the common membership neces-
sarily and directly associated with him, is a formless mass. It is no
longer a state. In it occur none of the characteristic features of an equipped
whole, such as sovereignty, government, law-courts, magistrates, pro-
fessions, etc., etc. When these elements of an organized national life
make their appearance in a people, it ceases to be that undefined ab-
straction, which is indicated by the mere general notion “people.”
If by the phrase “sovereignty of the people” is to be understood a
republic, or more precisely a democracy, for by a republic we under-
stand various empirical mixtures which do not belong to a philosophic
treatise, all that is necessary has already been said (§273, note). There
can no longer be any defence of such a notion in contrast with the devel-
oped idea.—When a people is not a patriarchal tribe, having passed
from the primitive condition, which made the forms of aristocracy and
democracy possible, and is represented not as in a wilful and unorga-
nized condition, but as a self-developed truly organic totality, in such a
people sovereignty is the personality of the whole, and exists, too, in a
reality, which is proportionate to the conception, the person of the mon-
arch.
The element of the ultimate self-determining decision of will does
not appear as an immanent vital element of the actual state in its pecu-
liar reality, so long as the classification of constitutions into democracy,
aristocracy, and monarchy can be made. When this classification pre-
vails we are, as we have said, at the stage of the undeveloped substan-
tive unity, which has not yet reached infinite difference and self-immer-
sion. But even in these incomplete forms of the state the summit must be
occupied by an individual. Either he appears in actual fact, as in those
monarchies, which are of this type. Or, under aristocratic, or more espe-
cially under democratic governments, he appears in the person of states-
men or generals, according to accident and the particular need of the
time. Here all overt action and realization have their origin and comple-
tion in the unity of the leader’s decision. But this subjectivity of deci-
sion, confined within a primitive and unalloyed unity of functions, must
be accidental in its origin and manifestation, and also on the whole sub-
ordinate. Accordingly, a pure and unmixed decision was looked for out-
side of and beyond this conditional summit, and was found in a fate
which pronounced judgment from without. As an element of the idea it
had to enter actual existence, but yet it had its root outside of human
228/G. W. F. Hegel
freedom, and the compass of the state.—To this source is to be traced
the need of oracles, the daimon of Socrates, the consultation of the en-
trails of animals, the flight of birds, and their way of eating, etc., meth-
ods resorted to on great occasions, when it was necessary to have final
judgment upon weighty affairs of state. As mankind had not yet realized
the profundity of self-consciousness, or come forth from the pure vir-
ginity of the substantive unity into self-conscious existence, they had
not yet strength to discover such a judgment within the pale of human
existence.—In the daimon of Socrates (§138) we can discern the begin-
ning of a change; we can see that the will, formerly set upon an object
wholly outside of itself, has begun to transfer itself into itself, and rec-
ognize itself within itself. This is the beginning of self-conscious and
therefore true freedom. This real freedom of the idea, since it gives its
own present self-conscious reality to every one of the elements of ratio-
nality, imparts to the function of consciousness the final self-determin-
ing certitude, which in the conception of the will is the cope-stone. But
this final self-determination can fall within the sphere of human liberty
only in so far as it is assigned to an independent and separate pinnacle,
exalted above all that is particular and conditional. Only when so placed,
has it a reality in accordance with the conception.
Addition.—In the organization of the state, that is to say, in consti-
tutional monarchy, we must have before us nothing except the inner
necessity of the idea. Every other point of view must disappear. The
state must be regarded as a great architectonic building, or the hieroglyph
of reason, presenting itself in actuality. Everything referring merely to
utility, externality, etc., must be excluded from a philosophic treatment.
It is easy for one to grasp the notion that the state is the self-determining
and completely sovereign will, whose judgment is final. It is more diffi-
cult to apprehend this “I will” as a person. By this is not meant that the
monarch can be wilful in his acts. Rather is he bound to the concrete
content of the advice of his councillors, and, when the constitution is
established, he has often nothing to do but sign his name. But this name
is weighty. It is the summit, over which nothing can climb. It may be
said that an articulated organization has already existed in the beautiful
democracy of Athens. Yet we see that the Greeks extracted the ultimate
judgment from quite external phenomena, such as oracles, entrails of
sacrificial animals, and the flight of birds, and that to nature they held
as to a power, which in these ways made known and gave expression to
what was good for mankind. Self- consciousness had at that time not yet
The Philosophy of Right/229
risen to the abstraction of subjectivity, or to the fact that concerning the
matter to be judged upon must be spoken a human “I will.” This “I will”
constitutes the greatest distinction between the ancient and the modern
world, and so must have its peculiar niche in the great building of state.
It is to be deplored that this characteristic should be viewed as some-
thing merely external, to be set aside or used at pleasure.
280. (3) This ultimate self of the state’s will is in this its abstraction
an individuality, which is simple and direct. Hence its very conception
implies that it is natural. Thus the monarch as a specific individual is
abstracted from all other content, and is appointed to the dignity of
monarch in a directly natural way, by natural birth.
Note.—This transition from the conception of pure self-determina-
tion to direct existence, and so to simple naturalness, is truly speculative
in its nature. A systematic account of it belongs to logic. It is on the
whole the same transition which is well-known in the nature of the will.
It is the process of translation of a content out of subjectivity, as repre-
sented end, into tangible reality (§8). But the peculiar form of the idea
and of the transition, here passed in review, is the direct conversion of
the Pure self-determination of the will, the simple conception itself, into
a specific object, a “this,” or natural visible reality, without the inter-
vention of any particular content, such as an end of action.
In the so-called ontological proof of the existence of God there is
the same conversion of the absolute conception into being. This conver-
sion has constituted the depth of the idea in modern times, although it
has been recently pronounced to be inconceivable. On such a theory,
since the unity of conception and embodiment is the truth (§23), all
knowledge of the truth must be renounced. Although the understanding
does not find this unity in its consciousness, and harps upon the separa-
tion of the two elements of the truth, it still permits a belief in a unity.
But since the current idea of the monarch is regarded as issuing out of
the ordinary consciousness, the understanding, with its astute reason-
ings, holds all the more tenaciously to the principle of separation and its
results. It thereupon denies that the element of ultimate decision in the
state is absolutely, that is, in the conception of reason, conjoined with
direct nature. It maintains, on the contrary, the merely accidental char-
acter of the conjunction of these two, and hence regards as rational their
absolute divergence. Finally, from the irrationality of the co-relation of
these two phases proceed other consequences, which destroy the idea of
the state.
230/G. W. F. Hegel
Addition.—It is often maintained that the position of monarch gives
to the affairs of state a haphazard character. It is said that the monarch
may be ill-educated, and unworthy to stand at the helm of state, and that
it is absurd for such a condition of things to exist under the name of
reason. It must be replied that the assumption on which these objections
proceed is of no value, since there is here no reference to particularity of
character. In a completed organization we have to do with nothing but
the extreme of formal decision, and that for this office is needed only a
man who says “Yes,” and so puts the dot upon the “i.” The pinnacle of
state must be such that the private character of its occupant shall be of
no significance. What beyond this final judgment belongs to the mon-
arch devolves upon particularity, with which we have no concern. There
may indeed arise circumstances, in which this particularity alone has
prominence, but in that case the state is not yet fully, or else badly
constructed. In a well-ordered monarchy only the objective side of law
comes to hand, and to this the monarch subjoins merely the subjective “I
will.”
281. Both elements, the final motiveless self of the will, and the like
motiveless existence on the side of nature, indissolubly unite in the idea
of that which is beyond the reach of caprice, and constitute the majesty
of the monarch. In this unity lies the actualized unity of the state. Only
by means of its unmotived directness on both its external and its internal
side is the unity taken beyond the possibility of degradation to the wil-
fulness, ends, and views of particularity. It is thus removed also from
the en-feeblement and overthrow of the functions of state and from the
struggle of faction against faction around the throne.
Note.—Right of birth and right of inheritance constitute the basis
of legitimacy, not as regards positive right merely, but likewise in the
idea.—Through the self-determined or natural succession to the vacant
throne all factious disputes are avoided. This has rightly been reckoned
as one of the advantages of inheritance. However, it is only a conse-
quence, and to assign it as a motive is to drag majesty down into the
sphere of mere reasonings. The character of majesty is unmotived di-
rectness, and final self-involved existence. To speak of grounds is to
propound as its basis not the idea of the state, which is internal to it, but
something external in its nature and alien, such as the thought of the
well-being of the state or of the people. By such a method inheritance
can indeed be deduced through medii termini; but there might be other
medii termini with quite other consequences. And it is only too well
The Philosophy of Right/231
known what consequences may be drawn from the well-being of the
people (salut du peuple).—Hence, philosophy ventures to contem, plate
majesty only in the medium of thought. Every other method of inquiry,
except the speculative method of the infinite self-grounded idea, abso-
lutely annuls the nature of majesty.
Freely to elect the monarch is readily taken as the most natural way.
It is closely allied to the following shallow thought:—“Because it is the
concern and interest of the people which the monarch has to provide for,
it must be left to the people to choose whom it will depute to provide for
them, and only out of such a commission arises the right of governing.”
This view, as well as the idea that the monarch is chief-officer of state,
and also the idea of a contract between him and the people, proceed
from the will of the multitude, in the form of inclination, opinion, and
caprice. These views, as we long ago remarked, first make themselves
good, or rather seek to do so, in the civic community. They can make no
headway against the principle of the family, still less that of the state, or,
in general, the idea of the ethical system.—That the election of a mon-
arch is the worst of proceedings may be even by ratiocination detected
in the consequences, which to it appear only as something possible or
probable, but are in fact inevitable. Through the relation involved in
free choice the particular will gives the ultimate decision, and the con-
stitution becomes a free-capitulation, that is, the abandonment of the
functions of state to the discretion of the particular will. The specific
functions of state are thus transformed into private property, and there
ensue the enfeeblement and injury of the sovereignty of the state, its
internal dissolution and external overthrow.
Addition.—If we are to apprehend the idea of the monarch, it is not
sufficient for us to say that God has established kings, since God has
made everything, even the worst of things. Nor can we proceed very far
under the guidance of the principle of utility, since it is always open to
point out disadvantages. Just as little are we helped by regarding mon-
archy as positive right. That I should have property is necessary, but
this specific possession is accidental. Accidental also appears to be the
right that one man should stand at the helm of state, if this right, too, be
regarded as abstract and positive. But this right is present absolutely,
both as a felt want and as a need of the thing itself. A monarch is not
remarkable for bodily strength or intellect, and yet millions permit them-
selves to be ruled by him. To say that men permit themselves to be
governed contrary to their interests, ends, and intentions is preposter-
232/G. W. F. Hegel
ous, since men are not so stupid. It is their need and the inner power of
the idea which urge them to this in opposition to their seeming con-
sciousness, and retain them in this relation.
Although the monarch comes forward as summit and essential fac-
tor of the constitution, it must be admitted that in the constitution a
conquered people is not identical with the prince. An uprising occurring
in a province conquered in war is different from a rebellion in a well-
organized state. The conquered are not rising against their prince, and
commit no crime against the state, because they are not joined with their
master in the intimate relation of the idea. They do not come within the
inner necessity of the constitution. In that case only a contract is to the
fore, and not a state-bond. “Je ne suis pas votre prince, je suis votre
maître,” replied Napoleon to the delegation from Erfurt.
282. Out of the sovereignty of the monarch flows the right of par-
doning criminals. Only to sovereignty belongs that realization of the
power of the spirit, which consists in regarding what has happened as
not having happened, and cancels crime by forgiving and forgetting.
Note.—The right of pardon is one of the highest recognitions of the
majesty of spirit. This right belongs to the retrospective application of
the character of a higher sphere to a lower and antecedent one.—Simi-
lar applications are found in the special sciences, which treat of objects
in their empirical environment (§270, footnote). — It belongs to appli-
cations of this kind that injury done to the state generally or to the sov-
ereignty, majesty, and personality of the prince, should fall under the
conception of crime, as it has already been discussed (§§95–102), and
should indeed be declared to be a specific crime of the gravest character.
Addition.—Pardon is the remission of punishment, but does not
supersede right. Rather right remains, and the pardoned is a criminal as
much after the pardon as he was before. Pardon does not imply that no
wrong has been committed. Remission of the penalty may occur in reli-
gion, for by and in spirit what has occurred can be made not to have
occurred. But in so far as remission of penalty is completed in the world,
it has place only in majesty, and can be effected only by its unmotived
edict.
283. The second element contained in the princely function is that
of particularity, involving a definite content and the subsumption of it
under the universal. In so far as it receives a particular existence, it is
the supreme council, and is composed of individuals. They present to
the monarch for his decision the content of the affairs, as they arise, and
The Philosophy of Right/233
of the legal cases which necessarily spring out of actual wants. Along
with these they furnish also their objective sides, namely, the grounds
for decision, the laws which bear on the case, the circumstances, etc. As
the individuals who discharge this office have to do with the monarch’s
immediate person, their appointment and dismissal lie in his unlimited,
free, arbitrary will.
284. The objective side of decision, including knowledge of the spe-
cial content and circumstances, and the legal and other evidence, is alone
responsible. It, that is to say, is alone able to furnish proof of objectiv-
ity. It must, therefore, come before a council other than the personal will
of the monarch, as such. These councils, advising boards or individual
advisers, are alone answerable. The peculiar majesty of the monarch, as
the final deciding subjectivity, is exalted above all responsibility for the
acts of government.
285. The third element of the princely function concerns the abso-
lutely universal, which consists subjectively in the conscience of the
monarch, objectively in the whole constitution and the laws. The princely
function presupposes these other elements, just as much as they presup-
pose it.
286. The objective guarantee of the princely office, or the securing
of the lawful succession to the throne by inheritance, lies in the fact that,
just as this office has a reality distinct from the other elements deter-
mined by reason, so the others have also their independent and peculiar
rights and duties. Every member of a rational organism, while preserv-
ing itself in independence, preserves also the peculiarities of the others.
Note.—One of the later results of history is such a modification of
the monarchical constitution that the succession to the throne is deter-
mined by the law of primogeniture. This is, as it were, a return to the
patriarchal principle, out of which this mode of succession has histori-
cally arisen, although it now bears the higher form of an absolute pin-
nacle of an organically developed state. This result has a most signifi-
cant bearing upon public liberty, and is one of the most important ele-
ments in a rational constitution, although, as has already been observed,
it is not so generally understood as it is respected. The earlier and merely
feudal monarchies, and despotism also, reveal in their history the alter-
nation of revolutions, high-handed dealings of princes, rebellion, over-
throw of princely individuals and houses, and a general desolation and
destruction, internal and external. The reason is that their division of
state offices, entrusted as they were to vassals, pashas, etc., was only
234/G. W. F. Hegel
mechanical. It was not a distinction inherent in the essential character
and form, but one of merely greater or less power. Accordingly, each
part, preserving and producing only itself, did not preserve and produce
the rest. All the elements were thus completely, isolated and indepen-
dent.
In the organic relation, in which members, and not parts, are related
to one another, each one preserves the rest while fulfilling its own sphere.
The preservation of the other members is the substantial end and prod-
uct of each one in preserving itself. The guarantees asked for, be they
for the stability of succession, for the stability of the princely office
generally, or for justice and public liberty, are secured in institutions.
Love of the people, character, oaths, force, etc., may be regarded as
subjective guarantees; but when we speak of a constitution, we are en-
gaged with only objective guarantees, institutions, or organically inter-
twined and self-conditioned elements. Thus, public freedom and heredi-
tary succession are mutual guarantees, and are absolutely connected.
Public liberty is the rational constitution, and hereditary succession of
the princely function lies, as has been shown, in the conception of the
constitution.
B. The Executive.
287. Decision is to be distinguished from its execution and application,
and in general from the prosecution and preservation of what has been
already resolved, namely, the existing laws, regulations, establishments
for common ends, and the like. This business of subsumption or appli-
cation is undertaken by the executive, including the judiciary and po-
lice. It is their duty directly to care for each particular thing in the civic
community, and in these private ends make to prevail the universal in-
terest.
288. Common interests of private concern occur within the civic
community, and fall outside of the self-constituted and self-contained
universal of the state (§256). They are administered in the corporations
(§251) of the societies, trades, and professions, by their superintendents
and representatives. The affairs, overseen by them, are the private prop-
erty and interest of these particular spheres, whose authority depends
upon the mutual trust of the associates, and confidence in the securities.
Yet these circles must be subordinate to the higher interest of the state.
Hence, in filling these posts generally, there will occur a mingling of the
choice of the interested parties with the ratification of a higher author-
The Philosophy of Right/235
ity.
289. To secure the universal interest of the state and to preserve the
law in the province of particular rights, and also to lead these rights
back to the universal interest, require the attention of subordinates of
the executive. These subordinates are on one side executive officers and
on the other a college of advisers. These two meet together in the highest
offices of all, which are in contact with the monarch.
Note.—The civic community is, as we saw, the arena for the contest
of the private interests of all against all. It is also the seat of battle
between private interest and the collective special interest, and likewise
of both private and collective special interests with the higher stand-
point and order of the state. The spirit of the corporation, begotten in the
course of regulating the particular spheres, becomes by a process inter-
nal to itself converted into the spirit of the state. It finds the state to be
the means of preserving particular ends. This is the secret of the patrio-
tism of the citizens in one of its phases. They are aware that the state is
their substantive being, because it preserves their particular spheres,
sustains their authority, and considers their welfare. Since the spirit of
the corporation contains directly the riveting of the particular to the
universal, it exhibits the depth and strength of the state as it exists in
sentiment. The administration of the business of the corporation through
its own representatives is often clumsy, because, while they see and
know their own peculiar interests and affairs, they do not discern the
connection with remote conditions or the universal standpoint. Other
elements contribute to this result, as, e.g., an intimate private relation
between the representatives and their subordinates. Circumstances of-
ten tend to equalize these two classes which are in many ways mutually
dependent. This peculiar territory can be looked on as handed over to
the element of formal freedom, in which the knowledge, judgment, and
practice of individuals, as also their small passions and fancies, may
have room to wrestle with one another. This may all the more easily
happen, the more trivial from the universal side of the state is the mis-
managed affair, especially when the mismanagement stands of itself in
direct relation to the satisfaction and opinion, which are derived from it.
290. In the business of the executive also there is a division of labour
(§198). The organized executive officers have therefore a formal though
difficult task before them. The lower concrete civil life must be gov-
erned from below in a concrete way. And yet the work must be divided
into its abstract branches, specially officered by middlemen, whose ac-
236/G. W. F. Hegel
tivity in connection with those below them must from the lowest to the
highest executive offices take the form of a continuous concrete over-
sight.
Addition.—The main point which crops up in connection with the
executive is the division of offices. This division is concerned with the
transition from the universal to the particular and singular; and the busi-
ness is to be divided according to the different branches. The difficulty
is that the different functions, the inferior and superior, must work in
harmony. The police and the judiciary proceed each on its own course,
it is true, but they yet in some office or other meet again. The means
used to effect this conjunction often consists in appointing the chancel-
lor of state and the prime minister, ministers in council. The matter is
thus simplified on its upper side. In this way also everything issues from
above out of the ministerial power, and business is, as they say, central-
ized. With this are associated the greatest possible despatch and effi-
ciency in regard to what may affect the universal interests of state. This
regime was introduced by the French Revolution, developed by Napo-
leon, and in France is found to this day. But France, on the other hand,
has neither corporations nor communes, that is to say, the sphere in
which particular and general interests coincide. In the Middle Ages this
sphere had acquired too great an independence. Then there were states
within the state, who persisted in behaving as if they were self-subsis-
tent bodies. Though this ought not to occur, yet the peculiar strength of
states lies in the communities. Here the government meets vested inter-
ests, which must be respected by it. These interests are inspected, and
may be assisted by the government. Thus the individual finds protection
in the exercise of his rights, and so attaches his particular interest to the
preservation of the whole. For some time past the chief task has been
that of organization carried on from above: while the lower and bulky
part of the whole was readily left more or less unorganized. Yet it is of
high importance that it also should be organized, because only as an
organism is it a power or force. Otherwise it is a mere heap or mass of
broken bits. An authoritative power is found only in the organic condi-
tion of the particular spheres.
291. The offices of the executive are of an objective nature, which
is already independently marked out in accordance with their substance
(§287). They are at the same time conducted by individuals. Between
the objective element and individuals there is no direct, natural connect-
ing tie. Hence individuals are not set aside for these offices by natural
The Philosophy of Right/237
personality or by birth. There is required in them the objective element,
namely, knowledge and proof of fitness. This proof guarantees to the
state what it needs, and, as it is the sole condition, makes it possible for
any citizen to devote himself to the universal class.
292. The subjective side is found in this, that out of many one indi-
vidual must be chosen, and empowered to discharge the office. Since in
this case the objective element does not lie in genius, as it does in art, the
number of persons from whom the selection may be made is necessarily
indefinite, and whom finally to prefer is beyond the possibility of abso-
lute determination. The junction of individual and office, two phases
whose relation is always accidental, devolves upon the princely power
as decisive and sovereign.
293. The particular state-business, which monarchy transfers to
executive officers, constitutes the objective side of the sovereignty in-
herent in the monarch. The distinguishing feature of this state-business
is found in the nature of its matter. Just as the activity of the officers is
the discharge of a duty, so their office is not subject to chance but a
right.
294. The individual, who by the act of the sovereign (§292) is given
an official vocation, holds it on the condition that he discharges his duty,
which is the substantive factor in his relation. By virtue of this factor
the individual finds in his official employment his livelihood and the
assured satisfaction of his particularity (§264), and in his external sur-
roundings and official activity is free from subjective dependence and
influences.
Note.—The state cannot rely upon service which is capricious and
voluntary, such, for example, as the administration of justice by knights-
errant. This service reserves to itself the right to act in accordance with
subjective views, and also the right to withhold itself at will, or to real-
ize subjective ends. The opposite extreme to the knight-errant in refer-
ence to public service would be the act of the public servant, who was
attached to his employment merely by want, without true duty or right.
The public service requires the sacrifice of independent self-satis-
faction at one’s pleasure, and grants the right of finding satisfaction in
the performance of duty, but nowhere else. Here is found the conjunc-
tion of universal and particular interests, a union which constitutes the
conception and the internal stability of the state (§260).
Official position is not based upon contract (§75), although it in-
volves the consent of the two sides and also a double performance. The
238/G. W. F. Hegel
public servant is not called to a single chance act of service, as is the
attorney, but finds in his work the main interest of both his spiritual and
his particular existence. So also it is not a matter merely external and
particular, the performance of which is intrusted to him. The value of
such a matter on its inner side is different from the externality of it, and
thus is not as yet injured, as a stipulation is (§77), merely by non- per-
formance. That which the public servant has to perform is as it stands of
absolute value. Hence positive injury or non-performance, either being
opposed to the essence of service, is a wrong to the universal content
(§95, a negative-infinite judgment), and therefore a fault or crime.
The assured satisfaction of particular want does away with external
need. There is no occasion to seek the means for alleviating want at the
cost of official activity and duty. In the universal function of state those
who are commissioned with the affairs of state are protected also against
the other subjective side, the private passion of subjects, whose private
interests, etc., may be injured by the furtherance of the universal.
295. Security for the state and its subjects against misuse of power
by the authorities and their officers is found directly in their responsibil-
ity arising out of their nature as a hierarchy. But it is also found in the
legitimate societies and corporations. They hold in check the inflow of
subjective wilfulness into the power of the officers. They also supple-
ment from below the control from above, which cannot reach down to
the conduct of individuals.
Note.—In the conduct and character of the officers the laws and
decisions of government touch individuality, and are given reality. On
this depend the satisfaction and confidence of the citizens in the govern-
ment. On this also depends the execution of the government’s intentions,
or else the weakening and frustration of them, since the manner in which
the intention is realized is by sensibilitv and sentiment easily estimated
more highly than the act itself, even though it be a tax. It is due to this
direct and personal contact that the control from above may incom-
pletely attain its end. This end may find an obstacle in the common
interest of the official class, which is distinct from both subjects and
superiors. Especially when institutions are perhaps not yet perfected,
the higher interference of sovereignty for the removal of these hindrances
(as for example that of Friedrich II in the famous Müller-Arnold affair)
is demanded and justified.
296. Whether or no integrity of conduct, gentleness, and freedom
from passion pass into social custom depends upon the nature of the
The Philosophy of Right/239
direct ethical life and thought. These phases of character maintain the
spiritual balance over against the merely mental acquisition of the so-
called sciences, dealing with the objects of these spheres of government,
against also the necessary practice of business, and the actual labour of
mechanical and other trades. The greatness of the state is also a control-
ling element, by virtue of which the importance of family relations and
other private ties is diminished, and revenge, hate, and the like passions
become inoperative and powerless. In concern for the great interests of
a large state, these subjective elements sink out of sight, and there is
produced an habitual regard for universal interests and affairs.
297. The members of the executive and the state officials constitute
the main part of the middle class, in which are found the educated intel-
ligence and the consciousness of right of the mass of a people. The
institutions of sovereignty operating from above and the rights of cor-
porations from below prevent this class from occupying the position of
an exclusive aristocracy and using their education and skill wilfully and
despotically.
Note.—At one time the administration of justice, whose object is
the peculiar interest of all individuals, had been converted into an in-
strument of gain and despotism. The knowledge of law was concealed
under a pedantic or foreign speech, and the knowledge of legal proce-
dure under an involved formalism.
Addition.—The state’s consciousness and the most conspicuous
education are found in the middle class, to which the state officials be-
long. The members of this class, therefore, form the pillars of the state
in regard to rectitude and intelligence. The state, if it has no middle
class, is still at a low stage of development. In Russia, for example,
there is a multitude of serfs and a host of rulers. It is of great concern to
the state that a middle class should be formed, but this can be effected
only in an organization such as we have described, namely, by the legal-
ization of particular circles, which are relatively independent, and by a
force of officials, whose wilfulness has no power over these legalized
circles. Action in accordance with universal right, and the habit of such
action, are consequences of the opposition produced by these self-reli-
ant independent circles.
C. The Legislature.
298. The legislature interprets the laws and also those internal affairs of
the state whose content is universal. This function is itself a part of the
240/G. W. F. Hegel
constitution. In it the constitution is presupposed, and so far lies abso-
lutely beyond direct delimitation. Yet it receives development in the im-
provement of the laws, and the progressive character of the universal
affairs of government.
Addition.—The constitution must unquestionably be the solid ground,
on which the legislature stands. Hence, the prime essential is not to set
to work to make a constitution. It exists, but yet it radically becomes,
that is, it is formed progressively. This progress is an alteration which is
not noticed, and has not the form of an alteration. For example, the
wealth of princes and their families was at first a private possession in
Germany; then, without any struggle or opposition it was converted into
domains, that is, state wealth. This came about through the princes feel-
ing the need of an undivided possession and demanding from the coun-
try, and the landed classes generally, security for the same. There was in
this way developed a kind of possession, over which the princes had no
longer the sole disposition. In a similar way, the emperor was formerly
judge, and travelled about in his kingdom giving the law. Through the
merely seeming or external progress of civilization, it has become nec-
essary that the emperor should more and more delegate this office of
judge to others. Thus the judicial function passed from the person of the
prince to colleagues. So the progress of any condition of things is a
seemingly calm and unnoticed one. In the lapse of time a constitution
attains a position quite other than it had before.
299. These objects are defined in reference to individuals more pre-
cisely in two ways, (
a) what of good comes to individuals to enjoy at the
hands of the state, and (
b) what they must perform for the state. The
first division embraces the laws of private right in general, also the
rights of societies and corporations. To these must be added universal
institutions, and indirectly (§298) the whole of the constitution. But that
which, on the other hand, is to be performed, is reduced to money as the
existing universal value of things and services. Hence, it can be deter-
mined only in so equitable a way that the particular tasks and services,
which the individual can perform, may be effected by his private will.
Note.—The object-matter of universal legislation may be in general
distinguished from that of the administrative and executive functions in
this way. Only what is wholly universal in its content falls under legis-
lation, while administration deals with the particular and also the spe-
cial way of carrying it out. But this distinction is not absolute, since the
law, as it is a law, and not a mere general command such as “Thou shalt
The Philosophy of Right/241
not kill” (§140, note, p. 142), must be in itself definite, and the more
definite it is, the more nearly its content approaches the possibility of
being carried out as it is. But at the same time such a complete settle-
ment of the laws would give them an empirical side, which in actual
execution would make them subject to alteration. This would be detri-
mental to their character as laws. The organic unity of the functions of
state implies that one single spirit both fixes the nature of the universal
and also carries it out to its definite reality.
It may occur that the state lays no direct claim upon the many kinds
of skill, possessions, talents, faculties, with the manifold personal wealth
which is contained in them and is tinged with subjective sentiment, but
only upon that form of wealth which appears as money.—The services
referring to the defence of the state against enemies belong to the duty
discussed in the next section of this treatise. Money is, in fact, not a
special kind of wealth, but the universal element in all kinds, in so far as
they in production are given such an external reality as can be appre-
hended as an object. Only at this external point of view is it possible and
just to estimate performances quantitatively.
Plato in his “Republic” allows the rulers to appoint individuals to
their particular class, and assign to them their particular tasks (§185,
note). In feudal-monarchy vassals had to perform a similarly unlimited
service, and simply in their particularity to discharge such a duty as that
of a judge. Services in the East, such as the vast undertakings in archi-
tecture in Egypt, are also in quality particular. In all these relations
there is lacking the principle of subjective freedom. In accordance with
this principle, the substantive act of the individual, which even in the
above- mentioned services is in its content particular, should proceed
from his particular will. This right is possible only when the demand for
work rests upon the basis of universal value. Through the influence of
this right the substitution of money for services has been introduced.
Addition.—The two aspects of the constitution refer to the rights
and the services of individuals. The services are now almost all reduced
to money. Military duty is perhaps the only remaining personal service.
In former times claim was made to the concrete individual, who was
summoned to work in accordance with his skill. Now the state buys
what it needs. This may seem abstract, dead, and unfeeling. It may also
seem as if to be satisfied with abstract services were for the state a
retrograde step. But the principle of the modern state involves that ev-
erything which the individual does should be occasioned by his will. By
242/G. W. F. Hegel
means of money the justice implied in equality can be much better sub-
stantiated. The talented would be more heavily taxed than the man with-
out talents if respect were had to concrete capacity. But now, out of
reverence for subjective liberty, the principle is brought to light that
only that shall be laid hold upon which is of a nature to be laid hold
upon.
300. In the legislative function in its totality are active both the
monarchical element and the executive. The monarchical gives the final
decision, and the executive element advises. The executive element has
concrete knowledge and oversight of the whole in its many sides and in
the actual principles firmly rooted in them. It has also acquaintance
with the wants of the offices of state. In the legislature are at last repre-
sented the different classes or estates.
Addition.—It proceeds from a wrong view of the state to exclude
the members of the executive from the legislature, as was at one time
done by the constituent assembly. In England the ministers are rightly
members of parliament, since those who share in the executive should
stand in connection with and not in opposition to the legislature. The
idea that the functions of government should be independent contains
the fundamental error that they should check one another. But this inde-
pendence is apt to usurp the unity of the state, and unity is above all
things to be desired.
301. By admitting the classes the legislature gives not simply im-
plicit but actual existence to matters of general concern. The element of
subjective formal freedom, the public consciousness, or the empirical
universality of the views and thoughts of the many, here becomes a
reality.
Note.—The expression “The Many” (
o polloi) characterizes the
empirical universality better than the word “All,” which is in current
use. Under this “all,” children, women, etc., are manifestly not meant to
be included. Manifestly, therefore, the definite term “all” should not be
employed, when, it may be, some quite indefinite thing is being dis-
cussed.
There are found in current opinion so unspeakably many perverted
and false notions and sayings concerning the people, the constitution,
and the classes, that it would be a vain task to specify, explain, and
correct them. When it is argued that an assembly of estates is necessary
and advantageous, it is meant that the people’s deputies, or, indeed, the
people itself, must best understand their own interest, and that it has
The Philosophy of Right/243
undoubtedly the truest desire to secure this interest. But it is rather true
that the people, in so far as this term signifies a special part of the
citizens, does not know what it wills. To know what we will, and further
what the absolute will, namely reason, wills, is the fruit of deep knowl-
edge and insight, and is therefore not the property of the people.
It requires but little reflection to see that the services performed by
the classes in behalf of the general well-being and public liberty cannot
be traced to an insight special to these classes. The highest state offi-
cials have necessarily deeper and more comprehensive insight into the
workings and needs of the state, and also greater skill and wider practi-
cal experience. They are able without the classes to secure the best re-
sults, just as it is they who must continually do this when the classes are
in actual assembly. General well-being does not therefore depend upon
the particular insight of the classes, but is rather the achievement of the
official deputies. They can inspect the work of the officers who are.
farthest removed from the observation of the chief functionaries of state.
They, too, have a concrete perception of the more urgent special needs
and defects. But to this intelligent oversight must be added the possibil-
ity of public censure. This possibility has the effect of calling out the
best insight upon public affairs and projects, and also the purest mo-
tives; its influence is felt by the members of the classes themselves. As
for the conspicuously good will, which is said to be shown by the classes
towards the general interest, it has already been remarked (§272, note)
that the masses, who in general adopt a negative standpoint, take for
granted that the will of the government is evil or but little good. If this
assumption were replied to in kind, it would lead to the recrimination
that the classes, since they originate in individuality, the private stand-
point and particular interests, are apt to pursue these things at the ex-
pense of the universal interest; while the other elements of the state,
being already at the point of view of the state, are devoted to universal
ends. As for the pledge to respect the public welfare and rational free-
dom, it should be given especially by the classes, but is shared in by all
the other institutions of state. This guarantee is present in such institu-
tions as the sovereignty of the monarch, hereditary succession, and the
constitution of the law-courts, much more pronouncedly than in the
classes. The classes, therefore, are specially marked out by their con-
taining the subjective element of universal liberty. In them the peculiar
insight and peculiar will of the sphere, which in this treatise has been
called the civic community, is actualized in relation to the state. It is
244/G. W. F. Hegel
here as elsewhere by means of the philosophic point of view that this
element is discerned to be a mark of the idea when developed to a total-
ity. This inner necessity is not to be confounded with the external neces-
sities and utilities of this phase of state activity.
Addition.—The attitude of the government to the classes must not
be in its essence hostile. The belief in the necessity of this hostile rela-
tion is a sad mistake. The government is not one party which stands
over against another, in such a way that each is seeking to wrest some-
thing from the other. If the state should find itself in such a situation, it
must be regarded as a misfortune and not as a sign of health. Further,
the taxes, to which the classes give their consent, are not to be looked
upon as a gift to the state, but are contributed for the interest of the
contributors. The peculiar significance of the classes or estates is this,
that through them the state enters into and begins to share in the subjec-
tive consciousness of the people.
302. The classes, considered as a mediating organ, stand between
the government and the people at large in their several spheres and indi-
vidual capacities. This specific designation of the classes requires of
them a sense and sentiment both for the state and government and for
the interests of special circles and individuals. This position of the classes
has, in common with the organized executive, a mediatorial function. It
neither isolates the princely function as an extreme, causing it to appear
as a mere ruling power acting capriciously, nor does it isolate the par-
ticular interests of communities, corporations, and individuals. Further-
more, individuals are not in it contrasted with the organized state, and
thus are not presented as a mass or heap, as unorganized opinion and
will, or as a mere collective force.
Note.—It is one of the fundamental principles of logic, that a defi-
nite element, which, when standing in opposition, has the bearing of an
extreme, ceases to be in opposition and becomes an organic element,
when it is observed to be at the same time a mean. In this present ques-
tion it is all the more important to make prominent this principle, since
the prejudice is as common as it is dangerous, which presents the classes
as essentially in opposition to the government. Taken organically, that
is, in its totality, the element of the classes proves its right only through
its office of mediation. Thus the opposition is reduced to mere appear-
ance. If it, in so far as it is manifested, were not concerned merely with
the superficial aspect of things but became a substantive opposition, the
state would be conceived of as in decay.—That the antagonism is not of
The Philosophy of Right/245
this radical kind is shown by the fact that the objects, against which it is
directed, are not the essential phases of the political organism, but things
that are more special and indifferent. The passion, which attaches itself
to this opposition, becomes mere party seeking for some subjective in-
terest, perhaps for one of the higher offices of state.
Addition.—The constitution is essentially a system of mediation. In
despotic lands where there are only princes and people, the people act, if
they act at all, in such a way as to disturb or destroy the political orga-
nization. But when the multitude has an organic relation to the whole, it
obtains its interests in a right and orderly way. If this middle term is not
present, the utterance of the masses is always violent. Therefore, the
despot treats the people with indulgence, while his rage affects only
those in his immediate neighbourhood. So also the people in a despo-
tism pay light taxes, which in a constitutional state become larger through
the people’s own consciousness. In no other land are taxes so heavy as
they are in England.
303. The universal class, the class devoted to the service of the
government, has directly in its structure the universal as the end of its
essential activity. In that branch of the legislative function, which con-
tains the classes, the private individual attains political significance and
efficiency. Hence, private persons cannot appear in the legislature either
as a mere undistinguished mass, or as an aggregate of atoms. In fact,
they already exist under two distinct aspects. They are found in the
class, which is based on the substantive relation, and also in the class
based upon particular interests and the labour by which they are se-
cured (§201 and fol.). Only in this way is the actual particular in the
state securely attached to the universal.
Note.—This view makes against another widespread idea, that since
the private class is in the legislature exalted to participation in the uni-
versal business, it must appear in the form of individuals, be it that
representatives are chosen for this purpose, or that every person shall
exercise a voice. But even in the family this abstract atomic view is no
longer to be found, nor in the civic community, in both of which the
individual makes his appearance only as a member of a universal. As to
the state, it is essentially an organization, whose members are indepen-
dent spheres, and in it no phase shall show itself as an unorganized
multitude. The many, as individuals, whom we are prone to call the
people, are indeed a collective whole, but merely as a multitude or form-
less mass, whose movement and action would be elemental, void of
246/G. W. F. Hegel
reason, violent, and terrible. When in reference to the constitution we
still hear the people, that is, this unorganized mass, spoken of, we may
take it for granted that we shall be given only generalities and warped
declamations.
The view leading to the disintegration of the common existence found
in the various circles, which are elements in the political world or high-
est concrete universality, would seek to divide the civic from the politi-
cal life. The basis of the state would then be only the abstract individu-
ality of wilfulness and opinion, a foundation which is merely accidental,
and not absolutely steadfast and authoritative. That would be like build-
ing political life in the air. Although in these so-called theories the classes
of the civic community generally and the classes in their political sig-
nificance lie far apart, yet speech has retained their unity, a union which
indeed existed long ago.
304. The distinction of classes, which is already present in the ear-
lier spheres, is contained also within the strict circumference of the po-
litical classes generally. Their abstract position is the extreme of empiri-
cal universality in opposition to the princely or monarchical principle.
In this abstract position there is only the possibility of agreement, and
hence quite as much the possibility of antagonism. It becomes a reason-
able relation, and leads to the conclusion of the syllogism (§302, note),
only if its middle term, or element of mediation, becomes a reality. Just
as from the side of the princely function the executive (§300) has al-
ready this character of reconciliation, so also from the side of the classes
should one of their elements be converted into a mediating term.
305. Of the classes of the civic community one contains the prin-
ciple, which is really capable of filling this political position. This is the
class, whose ethical character is natural. As its basis it has family life,
and as regards subsistence it has the possession of the soil. As regards
its particularity it has a will, which rests upon itself, and, in common
with the princely function, it bears the mark of nature.
306. In its political position and significance this class becomes
more clearly defined, when its means are made as independent of the
wealth of the state as they are of the uncertainty of trade, the desire for
gain, and the fluctuations of property. It is secure from the favour at
once of the executive and of the multitude. It is further secured even
from its own caprice, since the members of this class, who are called to
this office, do without the rights exercised by the other citizens. They do
not freely dispose of their property, nor do they divide it equally among
The Philosophy of Right/247
their children, whom they love equally. This wealth becomes an inalien-
able inheritance burdened by primogeniture.
Addition.—This class has a more independent volition. The class of
property owners is divided into two broad parts, the educated and the
peasants. In contradistinction to these two kinds stand both the indus-
trial class, which is dependent on and directed by the general wants, and
the universal class, which is essentially dependent upon the state. The
security and stability of this propertied class may be increased still more
by the institution of primogeniture. This, however, is desirable only in
reference to the state, since it entails a sacrifice for the political purpose
of giving to the eldest son an independent life. Primogeniture is insti-
tuted that the state may reckon upon, not the mere possibility belonging
to sentiment, but upon something necessary. Now sentiment, it is true, is
not bound up with a competence. But it is relatively necessary that some
having a sufficient property and being thereby freed from external pres-
sure, should step forth without hindrance and use their activity for the
state. But to establish and foster primogeniture where there are no po-
litical institutions would be nothing but a fetter clogging the freedom of
private right. Unless this freedom is supplemented by the political sense,
it goes to meet its dissolution.
307. The right of this part of the substantive class is based upon the
nature-principle of the family. But through heavy sacrifices for the state
this principle is transformed, and by the transformation this class is set
apart for political activity. Hence it is called and entitled to this sphere
by birth, without the accident of choice. It thus receives a stable sub-
stantive situation intermediate between the subjective caprice and the
accidents of the two extremes. While it resembles the princely function
(§306), it participates in the wants and rights of the other extreme. It
thus becomes a support at once to the throne and to the community.
308. Under the other part of the general class element is found the
fluctuating side of the civic community, which externally because of its
numerous membership, and necessarily because of its nature and occu-
pation, takes part in legislation only through deputies. If the civic com-
munity appoints these deputies, it does so in accordance with its real
nature. It is not a number of atoms gathering together merely for a par-
ticular and momentary act without any further bond of union, but a
body systematically composed of constituted societies, communities,
and corporations. These various circles receive in this way political unity.
Through the just claim of this part to be represented by a deputation to
248/G. W. F. Hegel
be summoned by the princely power, and also through the claim of the
first part to make an appearance (§307), the existence of the classes and
of their assembly finds its peculiar constitutional guarantee.
Note.—It is held that all should share individually in the counsels
and decisions regarding the general affairs of state. The reason assigned
is that all are members of the state, its affairs are the affairs of all, and
for the transaction of these affairs all with their knowledge and will
have a right to be present. This is a notion which, although it has no
reasonable form, the democratic element would insert into the organism
of state, notwithstanding the fact that the state is an organism only be-
cause of its reasonable form. This superficial view fastens upon and
adheres to the abstraction “member of the state.” But the rational method,
the consciousness of the idea, is concrete and is combined with the true
practical sense, which is itself nothing else than the rational sense or the
sense for the idea. Yet this sense is not to be confounded with mere
business routine, or bounded by the horizon of a limited sphere. The
concrete state is the whole, articulated into its particular circles, and the
member of the state is the member of a circle or class. Only his objective
character can be recognized in the state. His general character contains
the twofold element, private person and thinking person, and thinking is
the consciousness and willing of the universal. But consciousness and
will cease to be empty only when they are filled with particularity, and
by particularity is meant the characteristic of a particular class. The
individual is species, let us say, but has his intrinsic general actuality in
the species next above it. He attains actual and vital contact with the
universal in the sphere of the corporations and societies (§251). It re-
mains open to him by means of his skill to make his way into any class,
for which he has the capacity, including the universal class. Another
assumption, found in the current idea that all should have a share in the
business of state, is that all understand this business. This is as absurd
as it, despite its absurdity, is widespread. However, through the channel
of public opinion (§316) every one is free to express and make good his
subjective opinion concerning the universal.
309. Counsels and decisions upon universal concerns require del-
egates, who are chosen under the belief that they have a better under-
standing of state business than the electors themselves. They are trusted
to prosecute not the particular interest of a community or a corporation
in opposition to the universal, but the universal only. Hence, to the depu-
ties are not committed specific mandates or explicit instructions. But
The Philosophy of Right/249
just as little has the assembly the character merely of a lively gathering
of persons, each of whom is bent upon instructing, convincing, and ad-
vising the rest.
Addition.—In the case of representation consent is not given di-
rectly by all, but by those who are qualified, since here the individual
voter is no longer a mere infinite person. Representation is based upon
confidence; but confidence is different from simply casting a vote. To be
guided by the majority of votes is antagonistic to the principle that I
must meet my duty as a particular person. We have confidence in a
person when we believe in his insight and his willingness to treat my
affair as his own according to the best light of his knowledge and con-
science. The principle of the individual subjective will also disappears,
for confidence is concerned with a thing, the guiding ideals of a man, his
behaviour, his acts, his concrete understanding. A representative must
have a character, insight, and will capable of participating in universal
business. He speaks not in his character as an abstract individual, but as
one who seeks to make good his interests in an assembly occupied with
the universal. And the electors merely ask for some guarantee that the
delegate shall carry out and further this universal.
310. Independent means has its right in the first part of the classes.
The guarantee implied in a qualification and sentiment adequate to pub-
lic ends is found in the second part, which arises out of the fluctuating,
variable element of the civic community. It is chiefly found in sentiment,
skill, and practical knowledge of the interests of the state and civic com-
munity, all of which qualities are acquired through actual conduct of
business in the magistracies and public offices, and are preserved by
practical use. It is found present, too, in the official or political sense,
which is fashioned and tested by actual experience.
Note.—Subjective opinion readily finds the demand for guarantees
superfluous or injurious, when it is made upon the so-called people. But
the state contains the objective as its distinguishing trait, and not sub-
jective opinion with its self-confidence. Individuals can be for the state
only what in them is objectively recognizable and approved. Since this
second part of the class-element has its root in particular interests and
concerns, where accident, change, and caprice have the right to disport
themselves, the state must here look the more closely after the objective.
The external qualification of a certain property appears, when taken
abstractly, a one-sided external extreme, in contrast with the other just
as one-sided extreme, namely, the mere subjective confidence and opin-
250/G. W. F. Hegel
ion of the electors. Each in its abstraction is distinguished from the
concrete qualifications, indicated in §302, which are required of those
who advise concerning the business of state.—Nevertheless, in the choice
of a magistrate or other officer of a society or an association, a property
qualification is rightly made a condition, especially as much of the busi-
ness is administered without remuneration. This qualification has also
direct value in regard to the political business of the classes, if the mem-
bers receive no salary.
311. Deputies from the civic community should be acquainted with
the particular needs and interests of the body which they represent, and
also with the special obstacles which ought to be removed. They should
therefore be chosen from amongst themselves. Such a delegation is natu-
rally appointed by the different corporations of the civic community
(§308) by a simple process, which is not disturbed by abstractions and
atomistic notions. Thus they fulfil the point of view of the community
directly, and either an election is altogether superfluous, or the play of
opinion and caprice is reduced to a minimum.
Note.—It is a manifest advantage to have amongst the delegates
individuals who represent every considerable special branch of the com-
munity, such as trade, manufacture, etc. These individuals must be thor-
oughly acquainted with their branch and belong to it. In the idea of a
loose, indefinite election this important circumstance is given over to
accident. Every branch, however, has an equal right to be represented.
To regard the deputies as representatives has a significance that is or-
ganic and rational, only if they are not representatives of mere separate
individuals or of a mere multitude, but of one of the essential spheres of
the community and of its larger interests. Representation no longer means
that one person should take the place of another. Rather is the interest
itself actually present in the person of the representative, since he is
there in behalf of his own objective nature.
Of elections by means of many separate persons it may be observed
that there is necessarily little desire to vote, because one vote has so
slight an influence. Even when those who are entitled to vote are told
how extremely valuable their privilege is, they do not vote. Hence oc-
curs just the opposite of what is sought. The selection passes into the
hands of a few, a single party, or a special accidental interest, which
should rather be neutralized.
312. Of the two elements comprised under the classes, each brings
into council a particular modification. As one of these elements has
The Philosophy of Right/251
within the sphere of the classes the peculiar function of mediation, and
that, too, between two things which both exist, it has a separate exist-
ence. The assembly of the classes is thus divided into two chambers.
313. By this separation the number of courts is increased, and there
is a greater certainty of mature judgment. Moreover, an accidental deci-
sion, secured on the spur of the moment by a simple majority of the
votes, is rendered much less probable. But these are not the main advan-
tages. There is, besides, smaller opportunity or occasion for direct op-
position to arise between the class element and the government. Or in
the case when the mediating element is also found on the side of the
lower chamber, the insight of this lower house becomes all the stronger,
since it in this case appears to be more unpartisan and its opposition to
be neutralized.
314. The classes are not the sole investigators of the affairs of state
and sole judges of the general interest. Rather do they form merely an
addition (§301). Their distinctive trait is that, as they represent the mem-
bers of the civic community who have no share in the government, it is
through their co-operating knowledge, counsel, and judgment that the
element of formal freedom attains its right. Besides, a general acquain-
tance with state affairs is more widely extended through the publicity
given to the transactions of the classes.
315. By means of this avenue to knowledge public opinion first
attains to true thoughts, and to an insight into the condition and concep-
tion of the state and its concerns. It thus first reaches the capacity of
judging rationally concerning them. It learns, besides, to know and es-
teem the management, talents, virtues, and skill of the different officers
of state. While these talents by receiving publicity are given a strong
impulse towards development and an honourable field for exhibiting
their worth, they are also an antidote for the pride of individuals and of
the multitude, and are one of the best means for their education.
Addition.—To open the proceedings of the assembly of classes to
the public is of great educational value, especially for the citizens. By it
the people learn most certainly the true nature of their interests. There
prevails extensively the idea that everybody knows already what is good
for the state, and that this general knowledge is merely given utterance
to in a state assembly. But, indeed, the very opposite is the fact. Here,
first of all are developed virtues, talents, skill, which have to serve as
examples. Indeed, these assemblies may be awkward for the ministers,
who must here buckle on their wit and eloquence to resist the attacks of
252/G. W. F. Hegel
their opponents. Publicity is the greatest opportunity for instruction in
the state interests generally. Amongst a people, where publicity is the
rule, there is seen quite a different attitude towards the state than in
those places where state assemblies are not found or are secret. By the
publication of every proceeding, the chambers are first brought into
union with the larger general opinion. It is shown that what a man fan-
cies when he is at home with his wife and friends is one thing, and quite
another thing what occurs in a great gathering where one clever stroke
annihilates the preceding.
316. Formal subjective freedom, implying that individuals as such
should have and express their own judgment, opinion, and advice con-
cerning affairs of state, makes its appearance in that aggregate, which is
called public opinion. In it what is absolutely universal, substantive,
and true is joined with its opposite, the independent, peculiar, and par-
ticular opinions of the many. This phase of existence is therefore the
actual contradiction of itself; knowledge is appearance, the essential
exists directly as the unessential.
Addition.—Public opinion is the unorganized means through which
what a people wills and thinks is made known. That which is effective in
the state must indeed be in organic relation to it; and in the constitution
this is the case. But at all times public opinion has been a great power,
and it is especially so in our time, when the principle of subjective free-
dom has such importance and significance. What now shall be con-
firmed is confirmed no longer through force, and but little through use
and wont, but mainly by insight and reasons.
317. Public opinion contains therefore the eternal substantive prin-
ciples of justice, the true content and result of the whole constitution, of
legislation, and of the universal condition in general. It exists in the
form of sound human understanding, that is, of an ethical principle which
in the shape of prepossessions runs through everything. It contains the
true wants and right tendencies of actuality.
But when this inner phase comes forth into consciousness, it ap-
pears to imaginative thinking in the form of general propositions. It
claims to be of interest partly on its own separate account; but it also
comes to the assistance of concrete reasoning upon felt wants and upon
the events, arrangements, and relations of the state. When this happens,
there is brought forward also the whole range of accidental opinion,
with its ignorance and perversion, its false knowledge and incorrect judg-
ment. Now, as to the consciousness of what is peculiar in thought and
The Philosophy of Right/253
knowledge, with which the present phenomenon has to do, it may be
said that the worse an opinion is, the more peculiar and unique it is. The
bad is in its content wholly particular and unique; the rational, on the
contrary, is the absolutely universal. Yet it is the unique upon which
opinion founds its exalted self-esteem.
Note.—Hence it is not to be regarded merely as a difference in the
subjective point of view when it is declared on one side
“Vox populi, vox dei;”
and on the other side (in Ariosto, for example),
15
“Che ‘l Volgare ignorante ogn’ un riprenda E parli più di quel che
meno intenda;”
both phases are found side by side in public opinion. Since truth and
endless error are so directly united in it, either the one or the other is not
truly in earnest. It may seem hard to decide which is in earnest; and it
would still be hard, even if we were to confine ourselves to the direct
expression of public opinion. But since in its inner being public opinion
is the substantive, it is truly in earnest only about that. Yet the substan-
tive cannot be extracted from public opinion; it, by its very nature as
substantive, can be known only out of itself and on its own account. No
matter what passion is expended in support of an opinion, no matter
how seriously it is defended or attacked, this is no criterion of its prac-
tical validity. Yet least of all would opinion tolerate the idea that its
earnestness is not earnest at all.
A great mind has publicly raised the question, whether it be permit-
ted to deceive a people. We must answer that a people does not allow
itself to be deceived in regard to its substantive basis, or the essence and
definite character of its spirit; but in regard to the way in which it knows
this, and judges of its acts and phases, it deceives itself.
Addition.—The principle of the modern world demands that what
every man is bound to recognize must seem to him justified. He, more-
over, has had a voice in the discussion and decision. If he has given his
word and indicated that he is responsible, his subjectivity is satisfied,
and he allows many things to go unchallenged. In France freedom of
speech has always proved less dangerous than silence. One fears that if
a man is silent he will retain his aversion to an object; but reasoning
254/G. W. F. Hegel
upon it furnishes a safety-valve and brings satisfaction, while the ob-
ject, in the meantime, pursues its way unmolested.
318. Public opinion deserves, therefore, to be esteemed and despised;
to be despised in its concrete consciousness and expression, to be es-
teemed in its essential basis. At best, its inner nature makes merely an
appearance in its concrete expression, and that, too, in a more or less
troubled shape. Since it has not within itself the means of drawing dis-
tinctions, nor the capacity to raise its substantive side into definite knowl-
edge, independence of it is the first formal condition of anything great
and reasonable, whether in actuality or in science. Of any reasonable
end we may be sure that public opinion will ultimately be pleased with
it, recognize it, and constitute it one of its prepossessions.
Addition.—In public opinion all is false and true, but to find out the
truth in it is the affair of the great man. He who tells the time what it
wills and means, and then brings it to completion, is the great man of the
time. In his act the inner significance and essence of the time is actual-
ized. Who does not learn to despise public opinion, which is one thing in
one place and another in another, will never produce anything great.
319. The liberty of taking part in state affairs, the pricking impulse
to say and to have said one’s opinion, is directly secured by police laws
and regulations, which, however, hinder and punish the excess of this
liberty. Indirect security is based upon the government’s strength, which
lies mainly in the rationality of its constitution and the stability of its
measures, but partly also in the publicity given to the assemblies of the
classes. Security is guaranteed by publicity in so far as the assemblies
voice the mature and educated insight into the interests of the state, and
pass over to others what is less significant, especially if they are dis-
abused of the idea that the utterances of these others are peculiarly im-
portant and efficacious. Besides, a broad guarantee is found in the gen-
eral indifference and contempt, with which shallow and malicious utter-
ances are quickly and effectually visited.
Note.—One means of freely and widely participating in public af-
fairs is the press, which, in its more extended range, is superior to speech,
although inferior in vivacity.— To define the liberty of the press as the
liberty to speak and write what one pleases is parallel to the definition of
liberty in general, as liberty to do what one pleases. These views belong
to the undeveloped crudity and superficiality of fanciful theorizing.
Nowhere so much as in this matter does formalism hold its ground so
obstinately, and so little permits itself to be influenced by reasons. And
The Philosophy of Right/255
this was to be expected, because the object is here the most transient,
accidental, and particular in the whole range of opinion, with its infinite
variety of content and aspect. Of course, there is no obscurity about a
direct summons to steal, murder, or revolt. But, aside from that, much
depends on the manner and form of expression. The words may seem to
be quite general and undefined, and yet may conceal a perfectly definite
significance. Besides, they may have consequences, which are not actu-
ally expressed. Indeed, it may even be debated whether these conse-
quences are really in the expression and properly follow from it. This
indefi-niteness in the form and in the substance does not admit of the
laws attaining in this case the precision usually demanded of laws. Since
in this field crime, wrong, and injustice have their most particular and
subjective shape, the indefiniteness of the wrong causes the sentence
also to be completely subjective. Besides, the injury is in this matter
sought to be done to and make itself real in the thought, opinion, and
will of others. But it thus comes into contact with the freedom of others,
upon whom it depends whether the act is actually an injury or not.
Hence, the laws are open to criticism because of their indefinite-
ness. By the skilful use of terms they may be evaded; or, on the other
hand, it may be contended that the sentence is merely subjective. It may
be maintained further that an expression is not a deed but only an opin-
ion, or thought, or a simple saying. Thus, from the mere subjectivity of
content and from the insignificance of a mere opinion or saying the
inference is drawn that these words should pass unpunished. Yet in the
same breath there is demanded as great a respect and esteem for that
very opinion of mine as for my real mental possession, and for the utter-
ance of that opinion as for the deliberate utterance of a mental posses-
sion.
The fact remains that injury to the honour of individuals generally,
as libel, abuse, disdainful treatment of the government, its officials and
officers, especially the person of the prince, contempt for the laws, in-
citement to civil broil, etc., are all crimes or faults of different magni-
tudes. The greater indefiniteness of these acts, due to the element in
which they find utterance, does not annul their real character. It simply
causes the subjective ground, on which the offence is committed, to
decide the nature and shape of the reaction. It is this subjective nature of
the offence, which in the reaction converts subjectivity and uncertainty
into necessity, whether this reaction be mere prevention of crime by the
police or specific punishment. Here, as always, formalism relies on iso-
256/G. W. F. Hegel
lated aspects, belonging to the external appearance, and seeks by these
abstractions of its own creation to reason away the real and concrete
nature of the thing.
As to the sciences, they, if they are sciences in reality, are not found
in the region of opinion and subjective thought, nor does their method of
-presentation consist in the adroit use of terms, or allusions, or half-
uttered, half-concealed opinions, but in the simple, definite, and open
expression of the sense and meaning. Hence, the sciences do not come
under the category of public opinion (§316).
For the rest, the element in which public opinion finds utterance and
becomes an overt and tangible act is, as we have already observed, the
intelligence, principles, and opinions of others. It is this element which
determines the peculiar effect of these acts or the danger of them to
individuals, the community or the state (§218), just as a spark, if thrown
upon a heap of gunpowder, is much more dangerous than if thrown on
the ground, where it goes out and leaves no trace.—Hence, as the right
of science finds security in the content of its matter, so also may an
uttered wrong find security, or, at least, toleration, in the contempt with
which it is received. Offences, which are in strictness punishable at law,
may thus partly come under a kind of nemesis. Internal impotence, by
opposing itself to the talents and virtues, by which it feels oppressed,
comes in this way to itself, and gives self-consciousness to its own noth-
ingness. A more harmless form of nemesis was found amongst the Ro-
man soldiers in the satirical songs directed against their emperors on the
triumphal march. Having gone through hard service, and yet failing to
secure mention in the list of honours, they sought to get even with the
emperor in this jesting way. But even the nemesis which is bad and
malevolent is, when treated with scorn, deprived of its effect. Like the
public, which to some extent forms a circle for this kind of activity, it is
limited to a meaningless delight in others’ misfortunes and to a condem-
nation, which is inherent in itself.
320. There is the subjectivity, which is the dissolution of the estab-
lished state life. It has its external manifestation in the opinion or rea-
soning, which, in seeking to make good its own random aims, destroys
itself. This subjectivity has its true reality in its opposite, namely, in that
subjectivity, which, being identical with the substantive will, and con-
stituting the conception of the princely power, is the ideality of the whole.
This higher subjectivity has not as yet received in this treatise its right
and visible embodiment.
The Philosophy of Right/257
Addition.—We have already regarded subjectivity as existing in the
monarch, and in that capacity occupying the pinnacle of the state. The
other side of subjectivity manifests itself arbitrarily and quite externally
in public opinion. The subjectivity of the monarch is in itself abstract,
but it should be concrete, and should as concrete be the ideality which
diffuses itself over the whole. In the state which is at peace, all branches
of the civic life have their subsistence, but this subsistence beside and
outside of one another the branches have only as it issues out of the idea
of the whole. This process or idealization of the whole must also have
its own manifestation.
II. External Sovereignty.
321. Internal sovereignty (§278) is this ideality in so far as the elements
of spirit, and of the state as the embodiment of spirit, are unfolded in
their necessity, and subsist as organs of the state. But spirit, involving a
reference to itself, which is negative and infinitely free, becomes an
independent existence, which has incorporated the subsistent differences,
and hence is exclusive. So constituted, the state has an individuality,
which exists essentially as an individual, and in the sovereign is a real,
direct individual (§279).
322. Individuality, as exclusive and independent existence, appears
as a relation to other self- dependent states. The independent existence
of the actual spirit finds an embodiment in this general self-dependence,
which is, therefore, the first freedom and highest dignity of a people.
Note.—Those who, out of a desire for a collective whole, which
will constitute a more or less self-dependent state, and have its own
centre, are willing to abandon their own centre and self- dependence,
and form with others a new whole, are ignorant of the nature of a collec-
tive whole, and underrate the pride of a people in its independence.—
The force, which states have on their first appearance in history, is this
self-dependence, even though it is quite abstract and has no further in-
ternal development. Hence, in its most primitive manifestation, the state
has at its head an individual, whether he be patriarch, chief, or what not.
323. In actual reality, this negative reference of the state to itself
appears as reference to each other of two independent things, as though
the negative were some external thing. This negative reference has, there-
fore, in its existence the form of an event, involving accidental occur-
rences coming from without. But it is in fact its own highest element, its
real infinitude, the idealization of all its finite materials. The substance,
258/G. W. F. Hegel
as the absolute power, is here brought into contrast with all that is indi-
vidual and particular, such as life, property, the rights of property, or
even wider circles, and makes their relative worthlessness a fact for
consciousness.
324. The phase, according to which the interest and right of indi-
viduals is made a vanishing factor, is at the same time a positive ele-
ment, forming the basis of their, not accidental and fleeting, but abso-
lute individuality. This relation and the recognition of it constitute their
substantial duty. Property and life, not to speak of opinions and the
ordinary routine of existence, they must sacrifice, if necessary, in order
to preserve the substantive individuality, independence, and sovereignty
of the state.
Note.—It is a very distorted account of the matter when the state, in
demanding sacrifices from the citizens, is taken to be simply the civic
community, whose object is merely the security of life and property.
Security cannot possibly be obtained by the sacrifice of what is to be
secured.
Herein is to be found the ethical element in war. War is not to be
regarded as an absolute evil. It is not a merely external accident, having
its accidental ground in the passions of powerful individuals or nations,
in acts of injustice, or in anything which ought not to be. Accident befalls
that which is by nature accidental, and this fate is a necessity. So from
the standpoint of the conception and in philosophy the merely accidental
vanishes, because in it, as it is a mere appearance, is recognized its
essence, namely, necessity. It is necessary that what is finite, such as life
and property, should have its contingent nature exposed, since contin-
gency is inherent in the conception of the finite. This necessity has in
one phase of it the form of a force of nature, since all that is finite is
mortal and transient. But in the ethical life, that is to say, the state, this
force and nature are separated. Necessity becomes in this way exalted
to the work of freedom, and becomes a force which is ethical. What
from the standpoint of nature is transient, is now transient because it is
willed to be so; and that, which is fundamentally negative, becomes
substantive and distinctive individuality in the ethical order.
It is often said, for the sake of edification, that war makes short
work of the vanity of temporal things. It is the element by which the
idealization of what is particular receives its right and becomes an actu-
ality. Moreover, by it, as I have elsewhere expressed it, “finite pursuits
are rendered unstable, and the ethical health of peoples is preserved.
The Philosophy of Right/259
Just as the movement of the ocean prevents the corruption which would
be the result of perpetual calm, so by war people escape the corruption
which would be occasioned by a continuous or eternal peace.”—The
view that this quotation contains merely a philosophical idea, or, as it is
sometimes called, a justification of providence, and that actual war needs
another kind of justification, will be taken up later. The idealization,
which comes to the surface in war, viewed as an accidental foreign rela-
tion, is the same as the ideality by virtue of which the internal state
functions are organic elements of the whole. This principle is found in
history in such a fact as that successful wars have prevented civil broils
and strengthened the internal power of the state. So, too, peoples, who
have been unwilling or afraid to endure internal sovereignty, have been
subjugated by others, and in their struggles for independence have had
honour and success small in proportion to their failure to establish within
themselves a central political power; their freedom died through their
fear of its dying. Moreover, states, which have no guarantee of indepen-
dence in the strength of their army, states, e.g., that are very small in
comparison with their neighbours, have continued to subsist because of
their internal constitution, which merely of itself would seem to promise
them neither internal repose nor external security. These phenomena are
illustrations of our principle drawn from history.
Addition.—In peace the civic life becomes more and more extended.
Each separate sphere walls itself in and becomes exclusive, and at last
there is a stagnation of mankind. Their particularity becomes more and
more fixed and ossified. Unity of the body is essential to health, and
where the organs become hard death ensues. Everlasting peace is fre-
quently demanded as the ideal towards which mankind must move. Hence,
Kant proposed an alliance of princes, which should settle the controver-
sies of states, and the Holy Alliance was probably intended to be an
institution of this kind. But the state is individual, and in individuality
negation is essentially implied. Although a number of states may make
themselves into a family, the union, because it is an individuality, must
create an opposition, and so beget an enemy. As a result of war peoples
are strengthened, nations, which are involved in civil quarrels, winning
repose at home by means of war abroad. It is true that war occasions
insecurity of possessions, but this real insecurity is simply a necessary
commotion. From the pulpit we hear much regarding the uncertainty,
vanity, and instability of temporal things. At the very same time every
one, no matter how much he is impressed by these utterances, thinks
260/G. W. F. Hegel
that he will manage to retain his own stock and store. But if the uncer-
tainty comes in the form of hussars with glistening sabres, and begins to
work in downright earnest, this touching edification turns right about
face, and hurls curses at the invader. In spite of this, wars arise, when
they lie in the nature of the matter. The seeds spring up afresh, and
words are silenced before the earnest repetitions of history.
325. Sacrifice for the sake of the individuality of the state is the
substantive relation of all the citizens, and is, thus, a universal duty. It is
ideality on one of its sides, and stands in contrast to the reality of par-
ticular subsistence. Hence it itself becomes a specific relation, and to it
is dedicated a class of its own, the class whose virtue is bravery.
326. Dissensions between states may arise out of any one specific
side of their relations to each other. Through these dissensions the spe-
cific part of the state devoted to defence receives its distinguishing char-
acter. But if the whole state, as such, is in danger of losing its indepen-
dence, duty summons all the citizens to its defence. If the whole be-
comes a single force, and is torn from its internal position and goes
abroad, defence becomes converted into a war of conquest.
Note.—The weaponed force of the state constitutes its standing army.
The specific function of defending the state must be intrusted to a sepa-
rate class. This proceeding is due to the same necessity by which each of
the other particular elements, interests, or affairs, has a separate place,
as in marriage, the industrial class, the business class, and the political
class. Theorizing, which wanders up and down with its reasons, goes
about to contemplate the greater advantages or the greater disadvan-
tages of a standing army. Mere opinion decides against an army, be-
cause the conception of the matter is harder to understand than are sepa-
rate and external sides. Another reason is that the interests and aims of
particularity, expenses, consequent higher taxation, etc., are counted of
greater concern by the civic community than is the absolutely neces-
sary. On this view the necessary is valuable only as a means to the
preservation of the various special civic interests.
327. Bravery taken by itself is a formal virtue, since in it freedom is
farthest removed from all special aims, possessions, and enjoyments,
and even from life. But it involves a negation or renunciation of only
external realities, and does not carry with it a completion of the spiritual
nature. Thus, the sentiment of courage may be based upon any one of a
variety of grounds, and its actual result may be not for the brave them-
selves, bat only for others.
The Philosophy of Right/261
Addition.—The military class is the class of universality. To it are
assigned the defence of the state and the duty of bringing into existence
the ideality implicit in itself. In other words it must sacrifice itself. Bravery
is, it is true, of different sorts. The courage of the animal, or the robber,
the bravery due to a sense of honour, the bravery of chivalry, are not yet
the true forms of it. True bravery in civilized peoples consists in a readi-
ness to offer up oneself in the service of the state, so that the individual
counts only as one amongst many. Not personal fearlessness, but the
taking of one’s place in a universal cause, is the valuable feature of it. In
India five hundred men conquered twenty thousand, who were by no
means cowardly but lacked the sense of co- operation.
328. The content of bravery as a sentiment is found in the true
absolute final end, the sovereignty of the state. Bravery realizes this
end, and in so doing gives up personal reality. Hence, in this feeling are
found the most rigorous and direct antagonisms. There is present in it a
self-sacrifice, which is yet the existence of freedom. In it is found the
highest self-control or independence, which yet in its existence submits
to the mechanism of an external order and a life of service. An utter
obedience or complete abnegation of one’s own opinion and reasonings,
even an absence of one’s own spirit, is coupled with the most intense
and comprehensive direct presence of the spirit and of resolution. The
most hostile and hence most personal attitude towards individuals is
allied with perfect indifference, or even, it may be, a kindly feeling to-
wards them as individuals.
Note.—To risk one’s life is indeed something more than fear of death,
but it is yet a mere negative, having no independent character and value.
Only the positive element, the aim and content of the act, gives signifi-
cance to the feeling of fearlessness. Robbers or murderers, having in
view a crime, adventurers bent upon gratifying merely their own fancy,
risk their lives without fear.—The principle of the modern world, that
is, the thought and the universal, have given bravery a higher form. It
now seems to be mechanical in its expression, being the act not of a
particular person, but of a member of the whole. As antagonism is now
directed, not against separate persons, but against a hostile whole, per-
sonal courage appears as impersonal. To this change is due the inven-
tion of the gun; and this by no means chance invention has transmuted
the merely personal form of bravery into the more abstract.
329. The state has a foreign aspect, because it is an individual sub-
ject. Hence, its relation to other states falls within the princely function.
262/G. W. F. Hegel
Upon this function it devolves solely and directly to command the armed
force, to entertain relations with other states through ambassadors, to
decide upon peace and war, and to conduct other negotiations.
Addition.—In almost all European countries the individual summit
is the princely function, which has charge of foreign affairs. Wherever
the constitution requires the existence of classes or estates, it may be
asked whether the classes, which in any case control the supplies, should
not also resolve upon war and peace. In England, for example, no un-
popular war can be waged. But if it is meant that princes and cabinets
are more subject to passion than the houses, and hence that the houses
should decide whether there should be war or peace, it must be replied,
that often whole nations have been roused to a pitch of enthusiasm
surpassing that of their princes. Frequently in England the whole people
have insisted upon war, and in a certain measure compelled the minis-
ters to wage it. The popularity of Pitt was due to his knowing how to
meet what the nation willed. Not till afterwards did calm give rise to the
consciousness that the war was utterly useless, and undertaken without
adequate means. Moreover, a state is connected not only with another
but with several others, and the complications are so delicate that they
can be managed only by the highest power.
B. International Law.
330. International law arises out of the relation to one another of inde-
pendent states. Whatever is absolute in this relation receives the form of
a command, because its reality depends upon a distinct sovereign will.
Addition.——A state is not a private person, but in itself a com-
pletely independent totality. Hence, the relation of states to one another
is not merely that of morality and private right. It is often desired that
states should be regarded from the standpoint of private right and mo-
rality. But the position of private persons is such that they have over
them a law court, which realizes what is intrinsically right. A relation
between states ought also to be intrinsically right, and in mundane af-
fairs that which is intrinsically right ought to have power. But as against
the state there is no power to decide what is intrinsically right and to
realize this decision. Hence, we must here remain by the absolute com-
mand. States in their relation to one another are independent and look
upon the stipulations which they make one with another as provisional.
331. The nation as a state is the spirit substantively realized and
directly real. Hence, it is the absolute power on earth. As regards other
The Philosophy of Right/263
states it exists in sovereign independence. Hence, to exist for and be
recognized by another as such a state is its primary absolute right. But
this right is yet only formal, and the state’s demand to be recognized,
when based on these external relations, is abstract. Whether the state
exists absolutely and in concrete fact, depends upon its content, consti-
tution, and condition. Even then the recognition, containing the identity
of both inner and outer relations, depends upon the view and will of
another.
Note.—Just as the individual person is not real unless related to
others (§71 and elsewhere), so the state is not really individual unless
related to other states (§322), The legitimate province of a state in its
foreign relations, and more especially of the princely function, is on one
side wholly internal; a state shall not meddle with the internal affairs of
another state. Yet, on the other side, it is essential for its completeness
that it be recognized by others. But this recognition demands as a guar-
antee that it shall recognize those who recognize it, and will have re-
spect for their independence. Therefore they cannot be indifferent to its
internal affairs.—In the case of a nomadic people, or any people occu-
pying a lower grade of civilization, the question arises how far it can be
considered as a state. The religious opinions formerly held by Jews and
Mahomedans may contain a still higher opposition, which does not per-
mit of the universal identity implied in recognition.
Addition.—When Napoleon, before the peace of Campoformio, said,
“The French Republic needs recognition as little as the sun requires to
be recognized,” he really indicated the strength of the existence, which
already carried with it a guarantee of recognition, without its having
been expressed.
332. The direct reality, in which states stand to one another, sunders
itself into various relations, whose nature proceeds from independent
caprice on both sides, and hence has as a general thing the formal char-
acter of a contract. The subject matter of these contracts is, however, of
infinitely narrower range than of those in the civic community. There
individuals are dependent upon one another in a great variety of ways,
while independent states are wholes, which find satisfaction in the main
within themselves.
333. International law, or the law which is universal, and is meant
to hold absolutely good between states, is to be distinguished from the
special content of positive treaties, and has at its basis the proposition
that treaties, as they involve the mutual obligations of states, must be
264/G. W. F. Hegel
kept inviolate. But because the relation of states to one another has
sovereignty as its principle, they are so far in a condition of nature one
to the other. Their rights have reality not in a general will, which is
constituted as a superior power, but in their particular wills. Accord-
ingly the fundamental proposition of international law remains a good
intention, while in the actual situation the relation established by the
treaty is being continually shifted or abrogated.
Note.—There is no judge over states, at most only a referee or me-
diator, and even the mediatorial function is only an accidental thing,
being due to particular wills. Kant’s idea was that eternal peace should
be secured by an alliance of states. This alliance should settle every
dispute, make impossible the resort to arms for a decision, and be recog-
nized by every state. This idea assumes that states are in accord, an
agreement which, strengthened though it might be by moral, religious,
and other considerations, nevertheless always rested on the private sov-
ereign will, and was therefore liable to be disturbed by the element of
contingency.
334. Therefore, when the particular wills of states can come to no
agreement, the controversy can be settled only by war. Owing to the
wide field and the varied relations of the citizens of different states to
one another, injuries occur easily and frequently. What of these injuries
is to be viewed as a specific breach of a treaty or as a violation of formal
recognition and honour remains from the nature of the case indefinite. A
state may introduce its infinitude and honour into every one of its sepa-
rate compartments. It is all the more tempted to make or seek some
occasion for a display of irritability, if the individuality within it has
been strengthened by long internal rest, and desires an outlet for its
pent-up activity.
335. Moreover, the state as a spiritual whole cannot be satisfied
merely with taking notice of the fact of an injury, because injury in-
volves a threatened danger arising from the possible action of the other
state. Then, too, there is the weighing of probabilities, guesses at inten-
tions, and so forth, all of which have a part in the creation of strife.
336. Each self-dependent state has the standing of a particular will;
and it is on this alone that the validity of treaties depends. This particu-
lar will of the whole is in its content its well-being, and well-being con-
stitutes the highest law in its relation to another. All the more is this so
since the idea of the state involves that the opposition between right or
abstract freedom on one side and the complete specific content or well-
The Philosophy of Right/265
being on the other is superseded. It is to states as concrete wholes that
recognition (§331) is first granted.
337. The substantive weal of the state is its weal as a particular
state in its definite interests and condition, its peculiar external circum-
stances, and its particular treaty obligations. Thus the government is a
particular wisdom and not universal providence (§324, note). So, too,
its end in relation to other states, the principle justifying its wars and
treaties, is not a general thought, such as philanthropy, but the actually
wronged or threatened weal in its definite particularity.
Note.—At one time a lengthy discussion was held with regard to the
opposition between morals and politics, and the demand was made that
politics should be in accordance with morality. Here it may be remarked
merely that the commonweal has quite another authority than the weal
of the individual, and that the ethical substance or the state has directly
its reality or right not in an abstract, but in a concrete existence. This
existence, and not one of the many general thoughts held to be moral
commands, must be the principle of its conduct. The view that politics
in this assumed opposition is presumptively in the wrong depends on a
shallow notion both of morality and of the nature of the state in relation
to morality.
338. Although in war there prevails force, contingency, and ab-
sence of right, states continue to recognize one another as states. In this
fact is implied a covenant, by virtue of which each state retains absolute
value. Hence, war, even when actively prosecuted, is understood to be
temporary, and in international law is recognized as containing the pos-
sibility of peace. Ambassadors, also, are to be respected. War is not to
be waged against internal institutions, or the peaceable family and pri-
vate life, or private persons.
Addition.—Modern wars are carried on humanely. One person is
not set in hate over against another. Personal hostilities occur at most in
the case of the pickets. But in the army as an army, enmity is something
undetermined, and gives place to the duty which each person owes to
another.
339. For the rest, the capture of prisoners in time of war, and in time
of peace the concession of rights of private intercourse to the subjects of
another state, depend principally upon the ethical observances of na-
tions. In them is embodied that inner universality of behaviour, which is
preserved under all relations.
Addition.—The nations of Europe form a family by virtue of the
266/G. W. F. Hegel
universal principle of their legislation, their ethical observances, and
their civilization. Amongst them international behaviour is ameliorated,
while there prevails elsewhere a mutual infliction of evils. The relation
of one state to another fluctuates; no judge is present to compose differ-
ences; the higher judge is simply the universal and absolute spirit, the
spirit of the world.
340. As states are particular, there is manifested in their relation to
one another a shifting play of internal particularity of passions, inter-
ests, aims, talents, virtues, force, wrong, vice, and external contingency
on the very largest scale. In this play even the ethical whole, national
independence, is exposed to chance. The spirit of a nation is an existing
individual having in particularity its objective actuality and self-con-
sciousness. Because of this particularity it is limited. The destinies and
deeds of states in their connection with one another are the visible dia-
lectic of the finite nature of these spirits. Out of this dialectic the univer-
sal spirit, the spirit of the world, the unlimited spirit, produces itself. It
has the highest right of all, and exercises its right upon the lower spirits
in world-history. The history of the world is the world’s court of judg-
ment.
C. World-History.
341. The universal spirit exists concretely in art in the form of percep-
tion and image, in religion in the form of feeling and pictorial imagina-
tive thinking, and in philosophy in the form of pure free thought. In
world-history this concrete existence of spirit is the spiritual actuality in
the total range of its internality and externality. It is a court of judgment
because in its absolute universality the particular, namely, the Penates,
the civic community, and the national spirit in their many-coloured real-
ity are all merely ideal. The movement of spirit in this case consists in
visibly presenting these spheres as merely ideal.
342. Moreover, world-history is not a court of judgment, whose
principle is force, nor is it the abstract and irrational necessity of a blind
fate. It is self-caused and self-realized reason, and its actualized exist-
ence in spirit is knowledge. Hence, its development issuing solely out of
the conception of its freedom is a necessary development of the elements
of reason. It is, therefore, an unfolding of the spirit’s self-consciousness
and freedom. It is the exhibition and actualization of the universal spirit.
343. The history of spirit is its overt deeds, for only what it does it
is. and its deed is to make itself as a spirit the object of its conscious-
The Philosophy of Right/267
ness, to explain and lay hold upon itself by reference to itself. To lay
hold upon itself is its being and principle, and the completion of this act
is at the same time self-renunciation and transition. To express the mat-
ter formally, the spirit which again apprehends what has already been
grasped and actualized, or, what is the same thing, passes through self-
renunciation into itself, is the spirit of a higher stage.
Note.—Here occurs the question of the perfection and education of
humanity. They who have argued in favour of this idea, have surmised
something of the na.ture of spirit. They have understood that spirit has
Gnîqi seautÕn as a law of its being, and that when it lays hold upon
what it itself is, it assumes a higher form. To those who have rejected
this idea, spirit has remained an empty word and history a superficial
play of accidental and so-called mere human strife and passion. Though
in their use of the words “providence” and “design of providence,” they
express their belief in a higher control, they do not fill up the notion, but
announce that the design of providence is for them unknowable and
inconceivable.
344. States, peoples, and individuals are established upon their own
particular definite principle, which has systematized reality in their con-
stitutions and in the entire compass of their surroundings. Of this sys-
tematized reality they are aware, and in its interests are absorbed. Yet
are they the unconscious tools and organs of the world-spirit, through
whose inner activity the lower forms pass away. Thus the spirit by its
own motion and for its own end makes ready and works out the transi-
tion into its next higher stage.
345. Justice and virtue, wrong, force, and crime, talents and their
results, small and great passions, innocence and guilt, the splendour of
individuals, national life, independence, the fortune and misfortune of
states and individuals, have in the sphere of conscious reality their defi-
nite meaning and value, and find in that sphere judgment and their due.
This due is, however, as yet incomplete. In world-history, which lies
beyond this range of vision, the idea of the world- spirit, in that neces-
sary phase of it which constitutes at any time its actual stage, is given its
absolute right. The nation, then really flourishing, attains to happiness
and renown, and its deeds receive completion.
346. Since history is the embodiment of spirit in the form of events,
that is, of direct natural reality, the stages of development are present as
direct natural principles. Because they are natural, they conform to the
nature of a multiplicity, and exist one outside the other. Hence, to each
268/G. W. F. Hegel
nation is to be ascribed a single principle, comprised under its geo-
graphical and anthropological existence.
347. To the nation, whose natural principle is one of these stages, is
assigned the accomplishment of it through the process characteristic of
the self-developing self-consciousness of the world-spirit. In the history
of the world this nation is for a given epoch dominant, although it can
make an epoch but once (§346). In contrast with the absolute right of
this nation to be the bearer of the current phase in the development of
the world-spirit, the spirits of other existing nations are void of right,
and they, like those whose epochs are gone, count no longer in the his-
tory of the world.
Note.—The special history of a world-historic nation contains the
unfolding of its principle from its undeveloped infancy up to the time
when, in the full manhood of free ethical self- consciousness, it presses
in upon universal history. It contains, moreover, the period of decline
and destruction, the rise of a higher principle being marked in it simply
as the negative of its own. Hence, the spirit passes over into that higher
principle, and thus indicates to world-history another nation. From that
time onward the first nation has lost absolute interest, absorbs the higher
principle positively, it may be, and fashions itself in accordance with it,
but is, after all, only a recipient, and has no indwelling vitality and
freshness. Perhaps it loses its independence, perhaps continues to drag
itself on as a particular state or circle of states, and spends itself in
various random civil enterprises and foreign broils.
348. At the summit of all actions, including world-historical ac-
tions, stand individuals. Each of these individuals is a subjectivity who
realizes what is substantive (§279, note). He is a living embodiment of
the substantive deed of the world-spirit, and is, therefore, directly iden-
tical with this deed. It is concealed even from himself, and is not his
object and end (§344). Thus they do not receive honour and thanks for
their acts either from their contemporaries (§344), or from the public
opinion of posterity. By this opinion they are viewed merely as formal
subjectivities, and, as such, are simply given their part in immortal fame.
349. A people is not as yet a state. The transition from the family,
horde, clan, or multitude into a state constitutes the formal realization in
it of the idea. If the ethical substance, which every people has implicitly,
lacks this form, it is without that objectivity which comes from laws and
thought-out regulations. It has neither for itself nor for others any uni-
versal or generally admitted reality. It will not be recognized. Its inde-
The Philosophy of Right/269
pendence, being devoid of objective law or secure realized rationality, is
formal only and not a sovereignty.
Note.—From the ordinary point of view we do not call the patriar-
chal condition a constitution, or a people in this condition a state, or its
independence sovereignty. Before the beginning of actual history there
are found uninteresting stupid innocence and the bravery arising out of
the formal struggle for recognition and out of revenge (§§331, 57, note).
350. It is the absolute right of the idea to come visibly forth, and
proceeding from marriage and agriculture (§203, note) realize itself in
laws and objective institutions. This is true whether its realization ap-
pears in the form of divine law and beneficence or in the form of force
and wrong. This right is the right of heroes to found states.
351. In the same way civilized nations may treat as barbarians the
peoples who are behind them in the essential elements of the state. Thus,
the rights of mere herdsmen, hunters, and tillers of the soil are inferior,
and their independence is merely formal.
Note.—Wars and contests arising under such circumstances are
struggles for recognition in behalf of a certain definite content. It is this
feature of them which is significant in world-history.
352. The concrete ideas, which embody the national minds or spir-
its, has its truth in the concrete idea in its absolute universality. This is
the spirit of the world, around whose throne stand the other spirits as
perfecters of its actuality, and witnesses and ornaments of its splendour.
Since it is, as spirit, only the movement of its activity in order to know
itself absolutely, to free its consciousness from mere direct naturalness,
and to come to itself, the principles of the different forms of its self-
consciousness, as they appear in the process of liberation, are four. They
are the principles of the four world-historic kingdoms.
353. In its first and direct revelation the world-spirit has as its prin-
ciple the form of the substantive spirit, in whose identity individuality is
in its essence submerged and without explicit justification.
In the second principle the substantive spirit is aware of itself. Here
spirit is the positive content and filling, and is also at the same time the
living form, which is in its nature self- referred.
The third principle is the retreat into itself of this conscious self-
referred existence. There thus arises an abstract universality, and with it
an infinite opposition to objectivity, which is regarded as bereft of spirit.
In the fourth principle this opposition of the spirit is overturned in
order that spirit may receive into its inner self its truth and concrete
270/G. W. F. Hegel
essence. It thus becomes at home with objectivity, and the two are rec-
onciled. Because the spirit has come back to its formal substantive real-
ity by returning out of this infinite opposition, it seeks to produce and
know its truth as thought, and as a world of established reality.
354. In accordance with these four principles the four world-his-
toric empires are (1) the Oriental, (2) the Greek, (3) the Roman, and (4)
the Germanic.
355. (1) T
HE
O
RIENTAL
E
MPIRE
:—The first empire is the substantive
world-intuition, which proceeds from the natural whole of patriarchal
times. It has no internal divisions. Its worldly government is theocracy,
its ruler a high priest or God, its constitution and legislation are at the
same time its religion, and its civic and legal regulations are religious
and moral commands or usages. In the splendour of this totality the
individual personality sinks without rights; external nature is directly
divine or an ornament of God, and the history of reality is poetry. The
distinctions, which develop themselves in customs, government, and the
state, serve instead of laws, being converted by mere social usage into
clumsy, diffuse, and superstitious ceremonies, the accidents of personal
power and arbitrary rule. The division into classes becomes a caste
fixed as the laws of nature. Since in the Oriental empire there is nothing
stable, or rather what is firm is petrified, it has life only in a movement,
which goes on from the outside, and becomes an elemental violence and
desolation. Internal repose is merely a private life, which is sunk in
feebleness and lassitude.
Note.—The element of substantive natural spirituality is present in
the first forming of every state, and constitutes the absolute starting-
point of its history. This assertion is presented and historically estab-
lished by Dr. Stuhr in his well-reasoned and scholarly treatise “Vom
Untergange der Naturstaaten” (Berlin, 1812), who, moreover, suggests
in this work a rational method of viewing constitutional history and
history in general. The principle of subjectivity and self-conscious free-
dom he ascribes to the German nation. But since the treatise is wholly
taken up with the decline of the nature-states, it simply leads to the point
at which this modern principle makes its appearance. At that time it
assumed in part the guise of restless movement, human caprice, and
corruption, in part the particular guise of feeling, not having as yet de-
veloped itself into the objectivity of self-conscious substantivity or the
condition of organized law.
356. (2) T
HE
G
REEK
E
MPIRE
:—This empire still contains the earlier
The Philosophy of Right/271
substantive unity of the finite and infinite, but only as a mysterious
background, suppressed and kept down in gloomy reminiscence, in caves
and in traditional imagery. This background under the influence of the
self-distinguishing spirit is recreated into individual spirituality, and
exalted into the daylight of consciousness, where it is tempered and
clarified into beauty and a free and cheerful ethical life. Here arises the
principle of personal individuality, although it is not as yet self-centred,
but held in its ideal unity. One result of this incompleteness is that the
whole is broken up into a number of particular national minds or spirits.
Further, the final decision of will is not as yet intrusted to the subjectiv-
ity of the independent self-consciousness, but resides in a power, which
is higher than, and lies beyond it (§279, note). Moreover, the particular-
ity, which is found in wants, is not yet taken up into freedom, but segre-
gated in a class of slaves.
357. (3) T
HE
R
OMAN
E
MPIRE
:—In this empire the distinctions of
spirit are carried to the length of an infinite rupture of the ethical life
into two extremes, personal private self-consciousness, and abstract uni-
versality. The antagonism, arising between the substantive intuition of
an aristocracy and the principle of free personality in democratic form,
developed on the side of the aristocracy into superstition and the reten-
tion of cold self-seeking power, and on the side of the democracy into
the corrupt mass. The dissolution of the whole culminates in universal
misfortune, ethical life dies, national individualities, having merely the
bond of union of a Pantheon, perish, and individuals are degraded to the
level of that equality, in which they are merely private persons and have
only formal rights.
358. (4) T
HE
G
ERMAN
E
MPIRE
:—Owing to the loss of itself and its
world, and to the infinite pain caused by it, a loss of which the Jewish
people were already held to be the type, spirit is pressed back into itself,
and finds itself in the extreme of absolute negativity. But this extreme is
the absolute turning-point, and in it spirit finds the infinite and yet posi-
tive nature of its own inner being. This new discovery is the unity of the
divine and the human. By means of it objective truth is reconciled with
freedom, and that, too, inside of self-consciousness and subjectivity.
This new basis, infinite and yet positive, it has been charged upon the
northern principle of the Germanic nations to bring to completion.
359. The internal aspect of this northern principle exists in feeling
as faith, love, and hope. Although it is in this form still abstract, it is the
reconciliation and solution of all contradiction. It proceeds to unfold its
272/G. W. F. Hegel
content in order to raise it to reality and self-conscious rationality. It
thus constructs a kingdom of this world, based upon the feeling, trust,
and fellowship of free men. This kingdom in this its subjectivity is an
actual kingdom of rude caprice and barbarism in contrast with the world
beyond. It is an intellectual empire, whose content is indeed the truth of
its spirit. But as it is yet not thought out, and still is veiled in the barbar-
ism of picture-thinking, it exists as a spiritual force, which exercises
over the actual mind a despotic and tyrannical influence.
360. These kingdoms are based upon the distinction, which has now
won the form of absolute antagonism, and yet at the same time are
rooted in a single unity and idea. In the obdurate struggle, which thus
ensues, the spiritual has to lower its heaven to the level of an earthly and
temporal condition, to common worldliness, and to ordinary life and
thought. On the other hand the abstract actuality of the worldly is ex-
alted to thought, to the principle of rational being and knowing, and to
the rationality of right and law. As a result of these two tendencies, the
contradiction has become a marrowless phantasm. The present has
stripped off its barbarism and its lawless caprice, and truth has stripped
off its beyond and its casualness. The true atonement and reconciliation
has become objective, and unfolds the state as the image and reality of
reason. In the state, self-consciousness finds the organic development of
its real substantive knowing and will, in religion it finds in the form of
ideal essence the feeling and the vision of this its truth, and in science it
finds the free conceived knowledge of this truth, seeing it to be one and
the same in all its mutually completing manifestations, namely, the state,
nature, and the ideal world.
The End.
Notes
1. There are two kinds of laws, laws of nature and laws of right. The
laws of nature are simply there, and are valid as they are. They can-
not be gainsaid, although in certain cases they may be transgressed.
In order to know laws of nature, we must set to work to ascertain
them, for they are true, and only our ideas of them can be false. Of
these laws the measure is outside of us. Our knowledge adds nothing
to them, and does not further their operation. Only our knowledge of
them expands. The knowledge of right is partly of the same nature
and partly different. The laws of right also are simply there, and we
The Philosophy of Right/273
have to become acquainted with them. In this way the citizen has a
more or less firm hold of them as they are given to him, and the jurist
also abides by the same standpoint. But there is also a distinction. In
connection with the laws of right the spirit of investigation is stirred
up, and our attention is turned to the fact that the laws, because they
are different, are not absolute. Laws of right are established and handed
down by men. The inner voice must necessarily collide or agree with
them. Man cannot be limited to what is presented to him, but main-
tains that he has the standard of right within himself. He may be
subject to the necessity and force of external authority, but not in the
same way as he is to the necessity of nature; for always his inner
being says to him how a thing ought to be, and within himself he
finds the confirmation or lack of confirmation of what is generally
accepted. In nature the highest truth is that a law is. In right a thing is
not valid because it is, since every one demands that it shall conform
to his standard. Hence arises a possible conflict between what is and
what ought to be, between absolute unchanging right and the arbi-
trary decision of what ought to be right. Such division and strife
occur only on the soil of the spirit. Thus the unique privilege of the
spirit would appear to lead to discontent and unhappiness, and fre-
quently we are directed to nature in contrast with the fluctuations of
life. But it is exactly in the opposition arising between absolute right,
and that which the arbitrary will seeks to make right, that the need
lies of knowing thoroughly what right is. Men must openly meet and
face their reason, and consider the rationality of right. This is the
subject-matter of our science in contrast with jurisprudence, which
often has to do merely with contradictions. Moreover the world of to-
day has an imperative need to make this investigation. In ancient
times respect and reverence for the law were universal. But now the
fashion of the time has taken another turn, and thought confronts
everything which has been approved. Theories now set themselves in
opposition to reality, and make as though they were absolutely true
and necessary. And there is now more pressing need to know and
conceive the thoughts upon right. Since thought has exalted itself as
the essential form, we must now be careful to apprehend right also as
thought. It would look as though the door were thrown open for every
casual opinion, when thought is thus made to supervene upon right.
But true thought of a thing is not an opinion, but the conception of
the thing itself. The conception of the thing does not come to us by
274/G. W. F. Hegel
nature. Every man has fingers, and may have brush and colours, but
he is not by reason of that a painter. So is it with thought. The thought
of right is not a thing which every man has at first hand. True think-
ing is thorough acquaintance with the object. Hence our knowledge
must be scientific.
2. I have already had occasion to notice the shallowness of his science.
See “Science of Logic” (Nürnberg, 1812), Introduction, p. 17.
3. The same view finds expression in a letter of Job. v. Müller (“Works,”
Part VIII, p. 56), who, speaking of the condition of Rome in the year
1803, when the city was under French rule, writes, “A professor,
asked how the public academies were doing, answered, ‘On les tolère
comme les bordels!’” Similarly the so-called theory of reason or logic
we may still hear commended, perhaps under the belief that it is too
dry and unfruitful a science to claim any one’s attention, or, if it be
pursued here and there, that its formulae are without content, and,
though not of much good, can be of no great harm. Hence the recom-
mendation, so it is thought, if useless, can do no injury.
4. “Text-book of the History of Roman Law.”
5. “To do with aversion what duty requires.”
6. Pascal quotes also in the same place the prayer of Christ on the cross
for his enemies, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they
do.” He calls it a superfluous request, if the circumstance that they
were not conscious of what they had done deprived the act of its taint
of evil, since in that case it would not need to be forgiven. In the same
way he quotes the view of Aristotle (“Nicomach.” Eth. III. 2), who
draws a distinction between the agent who is
oÙk edëj and one who
is
¢gnoîn. In the first case the agent acts involuntarily, the lack of
knowledge having to do with external circumstances (§117), and is
thus not responsible for the act. But with regard to the other case,
Aristotle says, “No bad man really knows what should be done and
left undone, and it is this lack (
¡mart a) which makes him unjust and
evil. Ignorance of the choice between good and evil does not make an
act involuntary or the agent irresponsible, but only makes the act
bad.” Aristotle has indeed a deeper insight into the connection of
knowing and willing than is in vogue in the superficial philosophy,
which teaches that ignorance, feeling, and inspiration are the truest
principles of ethical conduct.
7. “That he feels fully convinced I do not in the least doubt. Yet many
commit the worst outrages from just such a conviction. Besides, if
The Philosophy of Right/275
that reason could avail everywhere as an excuse, there would no longer
be any rational judgment upon good and evil, honourable and mean
conduct. Lunacy would have the same rights as reason, or rather
reason would no longer have any right or esteem. Its voice would be
a thing of naught. Who does not doubt is in the truth! I tremble at the
results of such a toleration, which would be exclusively to the advan-
tage of unreason.” Fr. H. Jacobi to Count Holmer. Eutin 5th Aug.,
1800, Concerning Count Stolberg’s Conversion (Brennus, Berlin,
Aug., 1802).
8. Alluded to by Pascal above.
9. My deceased colleague, Professor Solger, adopted the interpretation
of irony which Fried, v. Schlegel had at an early period of his literary
career worked up till it became in his hands that subjectivity, which is
conscious of itself as the highest. But Solger’s superior judgment and
more philosophic insight seized and retained of this view only the
phase of dialectic proper, the moving pulse of the speculative method.
Perfectly clear, however, he cannot be said to be, nor can I agree with
the conceptions which he developed in his recent thoughtful and de-
tailed criticism of Schlegel’s lectures. [“Kritik über die Vorlesungen
des Herrn August “Wilhelm v. Schlegel über dramatische Kunst und
Literatur” (Wiener Jahrb. Bd. vii. S. 90 ff.).]
“True irony,” says Solger (p. 92), “proceeds from the view that
man, so long as he lives in this present world, can do his highest
appointed task only in this world. To believe ourselves to be tran-
scending finite ends is a vain imagination;” also “the highest exists
for our conduct only in limited, finite form.” This is, rightly under-
stood, Platonic, and very truly spoken against the striving to attain
the abstract infinite. But to say that the highest presents itself in a
limited and finite form, as in ethics, and that the ethical is essentially
reality and action, is very different from saying that the ethical is
only a finite end. The finite form deprives the ethical matter of none
of its real substance and infinitude. He goes on: “And just for this
reason the highest is for us as empty as the lowest, and necessarily
collapses along with us and our vain understanding. For truly the
highest exists only in God, and reveals itself as divine in our collapse.
In the divine we have no share, unless its immediate presence be
revealed in the disappearance of our reality. The disposition, to which
this principle of life is clearly present, is tragic irony.” The name
irony may be arbitrarily used to describe any state of mind, but it is
276/G. W. F. Hegel
far from clear how the highest goes down with our nothingness, or
how the divine is revealed only in the disappearance of our reality.
This position is also maintained in a passage on p. 91, which runs:
“We see heroes in error in both thought and feeling, with regard not
only to the effects of the most noble and the most beautiful, but also
to their source and value; yes, we are exalted in the destruction of the
best itself.” The righteous destruction of ranting villains and crimi-
nals, of whom the hero in a modern tragedy, “Die Schuld,” is an
example, has indeed an interest for criminal law, but none for true
art. But the tragic destruction of highly moral personages may inter-
est, exalt, and reconcile us to itself, when they contract guilt by be-
coming opposing champions of equally just ethical forces, which by
some misfortune come into collision. Out of this antagonism proceed
the right and wrong of each party. There appears also the true ethical
idea, purified and triumphant over onesidedness, and therefore rec-
onciled with and in ourselves. Hence it is not the highest in us which
is overwhelmed, nor is it when the best is submerged that we are
exalted, but, on the contrary, when the truth triumphs. This, as I have
explained, in the “Phänomenologie des Geistes,” is the true and pure
ethical interest of the ancient tragedy, although in the romantic drama
this function of tragedy suffers a further modification. But, apart
altogether from the misfortune of tragic collision, and the destruction
of the individuals caught in this misfortune, the ethical idea has a real
and present existence in the ethical world, and the ethical reality,
namely, the state, has as its purpose and result that this highest shall
not present itself in the real world as something valueless. This aim
or object of the state the ethical consciousness possesses intuitively,
and the thinking consciousness conceives.
10. See “Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences.”
11. This book is of an original kind. The ill-humour of the author might
in itself be not ignoble, since he was stirred to indignation by the false
theories, to which is attached especially the name of Rousseau, and
by the attempt to put them in operation. But Mr. v. Haller, in order to
save himself, has thrown himself into a counter-position, which is
wholly void of thought, and cannot, therefore, be said to have any
standing-ground. He expresses the bitterest hatred of all law, legisla-
tion, and all formally and legally constituted right. Hatred of the law,
and of legally constituted right is the shibboleth, by means of which
are revealed and may be infallibly recognized fanaticism, mental im-
The Philosophy of Right/277
becility, and the hypocrisy of good intentions, let them disguise them-
selves as they will. Such an originality as that of Mr. v. Haller’s is
always a noteworthy phenomenon, and for those of my readers who
do not yet know the work, I shall quote a few passages in proof of my
contention. Mr. v. H. (p. 342 ff., vol. i.) thus exhibits his fundamental
proposition: “In the inorganic realm the greater oppresses the smaller,
and the mighty the feeble; so is it also with animals, and the same law
in more honourable forms, and often indeed in dishonourable forms,
appears again in man.” “It is the eternal, unchangeable decree of God
that the more powerful rules, must rule, and will ever rule.” From
these sentences, and from those given further on, it may be seen in
what sense the word “power” is here used. It not the power of right
and the ethical, but the contingent force of nature. This he proceeds
to make good upon this amongst other grounds (p. 365 and fol.), that
by an admirable and wise provision of nature the feeling of one’s own
superiority irresistibly enriches the character, and favours the devel-
opment of the very virtues which are most necessary in dealing with
subordinates. He asks, with much rhetoric, “whether in the kingdom
of science it is the strong or the weak, who are the more inclined to
use authority and trust, in order to aid their low selfish purposes, and
for the ruin of confiding men, whether the majority of the lawyers are
not pettifoggers and pedants, who betray the hopes of confiding cli-
ents, make white black and black white, use the law as a vehicle of
wrong, bring those who seek their protection to beggary, and, like the
hungry vulture, tear in pieces the innocent lamb, etc.” Mr. v. H. has
here forgotten that he is employing this rhetoric in support of his
sentence that the rule of the stronger is the eternal ordinance of God,
the very same ordinance by virtue of which the vulture tears to pieces
the innocent lamb. He seems to say that the stronger are quite right in
using their knowledge of the law to plunder the feeble trusting cli-
ents. But it would be asking too much of him to bring two thoughts
into relation when he has not one.
It is self-evident that Mr. v. H. is an enemy of statute-books.
Civil laws in general are in his view “unnecessary, since they issue as
self-evident from natural law.” States, since states there are, would
be saved the trouble devoted to laws, law-hooks, and the study of
legal right, if they would simply repose on the principle that every-
thing is self-evident. “But on the other side the laws are not properly
speaking given to private persons. They are instructions for the judges,
278/G. W. F. Hegel
who are by them made acquainted with the will of the rulers. The
administration of the law (vol. i. p. 297; pt. i. p. 254, and elsewhere)
is not a duty of the state, but a donation or assistance by the strong,
and is merely supplementary. Of the means for the protection of rights
the employment of law is not the most complete, but is rather uncer-
tain and insecure. It leaves us with only our modern law-scholars,
and robs us of the three other means, which lead most quickly and
certainly to the end, the means which friendly nature has given man
for the security of his rightful freedom.” These three are (what do
you think?) “(1) Private obedience and enforcement of the natural
law, (2) Resistance to wrong, and (3) Flight, when there is no other
remedy.” How unfriendly are the jurists in comparison with friendly
nature! “But the natural divine law (vol. i. p. 292), which all-bounti-
ful nature has given to every one, is: Honour every one as thy equal.”
(According to the author’s principle this should read: Honour him
who is not thy equal, but the stronger.) “Wrong no man who does not
wrong thee. Demand nothing but what he owes thee.” (But what does
he owe?) “Yes, and more, love thy neighbour and use him when thou
canst.” It is to be the planting of this law which is to make legislation
and constitutions useless. It would be worth seeing how Mr. v. H.
makes it intelligible that, irrespective of this planting, legislation and
constitutions have come into the world.
In vol. iii. p. 362 fol., the author reaches the “so-called national
liberties,” that is, the laws and constitutions of nations. Every legally
constituted right is in this larger use of the word a liberty. Of these
laws he says this, amongst other things, “that their content is usually
very insignificant, although in books great stress is laid upon these
documentary liberties.” When we realize that the author means the
national liberties of the German Empire and of the English nation
(the Charta Magna, “which, however, is little read, and, because of
its antiquated expressions, less understood,” and the Bill of Rights),
and the national liberties of the people of Hungary and other lands,
we are surprised to learn that he regards these so highly-valued pos-
sessions as insignificant. As great a surprise is it to hear that the
laws, which are of daily and hourly concern, dealing with every piece
of cloth that is worn and every piece of bread that is eaten, should
have a value merely in books.
As for the general statute-book of Prussia, to quote only one
thing more, Mr. v. H. has not one good word to say for it (vol. i. p.
The Philosophy of Right/279
185 fol.), because upon it the unphilosophical errors (not as yet the
Kantian philosophy, at any rate, I must add, against which Mr. v. H.
inveighs most bitterly of all) have had a bad effect, especially in the
matters of the state, national wealth, the end of the state, the head of
the state, his duties, the servants of the state, and such things. What
most annoys Mr. v. H. is “the right to levy contributions upon private
possessions, occupations, productions, and consumptions, in order
to defray the expenses of the state. As state-wealth is not the private
possession of the prince, but is qualified as the wealth of the state,
neither the king himself nor any Prussian citizen has anything his
own, neither body nor goods, and all the subjects become legal bond-
men. They dare not with draw themselves from the service of the
state.”
In all this incredible crudity there is a touch of the ludicrous in
the unspeakable pleasure which Mr. v. H. feels in his own revelations
(vol. i., preface). It was “a joy, such as only a friend of truth can feel,
when he after an honest investigation is assured that he has hit upon
as it were” (yes, indeed, As it were!) “the voice of nature or the word
of God.” (The word of God is in its revelation quite distinct from the
voice of nature and of the natural man.) “And when he might have
sunk down in sheer amazement, a stream of joyous tears sprang from
his eyes, and from that moment living religiosity arose within him.”
Mr. v. H. ought rather, in his religiosity, to have wept over his fate as
the hardest chastisement of God. It is the most severe punishment
which can be experienced to wander so far from thought and reason,
from reverence for the law and from the knowledge of how infinitely
important and divine it is that the duties of the state and the rights of
the citizens, as also the rights of the state and the duties of the citi-
zens, should be legally determined, to wander so far from this as to
substitute an absurdity for the word of God.
12. Religion, knowledge, and science have as principles forms peculiar
to themselves and different from that of the state. Hence, they enter
the state partly as aids to education and sentiment, partly as ends for
themselves, having an external reality. In both cases the principles of
the state are merely applied to these spheres. In a fully concrete trea-
tise on the state these spheres, as well as art and the mere natural
relations, would have to be considered, and given their proper place.
But in this treatise, where the Principle of the state is traversed in its
own peculiar sphere in accordance with its idea, these other prin-
280/G. W. F. Hegel
ciples, and the application to them of the right of the state, can re-
ceive only a passing notice.
13. Of Quakers, Anabaptists, etc., it may be said that they are merely
active members of the civic community, having as private persons
only private relations with others. Even here, however, they have
been permitted to forego the use of the oath. Direct state duties they
fulfil passively. To one of the most important of these, that of defence
against an enemy, they openly refuse to submit, and are granted re-
lease from it on condition of their substituting some other service.
Towards these sects the state is expected to exercise toleration. Since
they do not recognize their duties to it, they cannot claim the right to
be members of it. Once in a North American Congress, when the
abolition of the slavery of the negroes was being strongly advocated,
a deputy from the Southern States made the apposite remark, “Let us
have negroes; we let you have Quakers.”—Only because the state is
otherwise strong can it overlook and tolerate these anomalies. It re-
lies upon the strength of its moral observances, and upon the inner
reason of its institutions to diminish and overcome divisions, which it
would nevertheless be within its strict right to abolish. So, too, states
have had a formal right against the Jews in regard to the concession
to them of even civil rights, because they are not merely a religious
body, but claim to look upon themselves as a foreign nation. But the
outcry raised against them on this and other grounds has overlooked
the fact that they are first of all men, and that to be a man is more
than a superficial abstract qualification (§209, note). The civil rights
implied in it give rise to a feeling of self-respect, the sense of count-
ing as a lawful person in the civic community. This feeling of being
infinite and free from all others is the root out of which springs the
needed balance of the various kinds of thought and sentiment. The
isolation with which the Jews have been blamed it is better to pre-
serve. It would have been a reproach and wrong for any state to have
excluded them for this reason. To do so would be to misunderstand
its own principle, the nature and power of its objective institutions
(§268, end of note). To expel the Jews on the pretence that this course
is in accordance with the highest justice, has proved an unwise mea-
sure, while the actual method employed by the government has been
shown to be wise and honourable.
14. Laplace, in his “Darstellung des Weltsystems,” Book V, ch. 4, writes,
“When Galileo published his discoveries, to which he was assisted
The Philosophy of Right/281
by the telescope and the phases of Venus, he proved incontestably
that the earth moved. But the view that the earth is in motion was
declared by an assembly of cardinals to be heretical. Whereupon
Galileo, the famous advocate of this view, was summoned before the
Inquisition, and compelled to retract on pain of a severe imprison-
ment. In a man of mind the passion for truth is one of the strongest
passions.—Galileo, convinced by his own observations of the mo-
tion of the earth, thought for a long time upon a new work in which
he would undertake to develop all the proofs of his theory. But in
order at the same time to escape the persecution, of which he would
have been the victim, he resolved to issue his work in the form of a
dialogue between three persons. Naturally, the advantage lay with
the advocate of the Copernican system. But since Galileo did not
decide between them, and gave every possible weight to the objec-
tions of the follower of Ptolemaus, he had a right to expect that he
would not be disturbed in the enjoyment of that rest which his great
age and services deserved. But in his sixtieth year he was a second
time summoned before the tribunal of the Inquisition, was impris-
oned, and again asked to retract his views under the threat of the
punishment which is meted out to a heretic twice fallen. They in-
duced him to subscribe to the following form of abjuration: ‘I, Galileo,
who in my sixtieth year find myself in person before the court, kneel-
ing and looking upon the holy Gospels, which I touch with my hands,
forswear, abjure, and execrate with honest heart and true faith, the
preposterous, false, and heretical doctrine of the motion of the earth,
etc.’ What a spectacle! An honourable old man, celebrated through a
long life devoted to the investigation of nature, against the witness of
his own conscience, recants upon his knees the truth, which he had so
convincingly proved. By the sentence of the Inquisition he was con-
demned to perpetual imprisonment. A year afterwards, through the
mediation of the Grand-duke of Florence, he was set at liberty.—He
died in 1642. His loss was deplored by Europe, which had been en-
lightened by his labours and stirred to indignation by the sentence
passed by so detested a tribunal upon so great a man.”
15 Or in Goethe:
“Zuschlagen kann die Masse, Da ist sie respektabel;
Urtheilen gelingt ihr miserabel.”
Document Outline
- Contents
- Translator's Preface.
- Author's Preface.
- Introduction.
- First Part: Abstract Right.
- First Section. Property.
- A. The Act of Possession.
- B. Use of the Object.
- C. Relinquishment of Property.
- Second Section: Contract.
- Third Section: Wrong.
- A. Unpremeditated Wrong.
- B. Fraud.
- C. Violence and Crime.
- Transition from Right to Morality.
- Second Part: Morality.
- First Section: Purpose and Responsibility.
- Second Section: Intention and Well-being.
- Third Section: The Good and Conscience.
- Transition from Morality to Ethical System.
- Third Part: The Ethical System.
- First Section: The Family.
- A. Marriage.
- B. The Family Means.
- C. Education of the Children and Dissolution of the Family.
- Transition of the Family into the Civic Community.
- Second Section: The Civic Community.
- A. The System of Wants.
- B. Administration of Justice.
- C. Police and Corporation.
- Third Section: The State.
- A. Internal Polity.
- B. International Law.
- C. World-History.
- Notes
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